Keep Your Lamps: An Underground Message?

Master Chorus Eastside just finished a pair of Celebrate America concerts for the 4^th of July that featured folk songs in many styles, including several spirituals.  Keep Your Lamps! a simple but emotionally powerful number, is one of my favorites.  One of our singers did some digging and came up with the following perceptive insights.

Dr. Linda Gingrich
Artistic director and conductor
Master Chorus Eastside

♫

“Keep Your Lamps!” is a terrific example of an African-American Spiritual, or religious folk song that might have served multiple purposes. It may have been sung during the time of slavery to express spiritual devotion, or to share a risky sentiment or plan. The music and lyrics may also have evolved and changed over time as it was passed orally between multiple generations.  Although the original composer and context is unknown, Andre Thomas’ arrangement (see link), resonates deeply for this chorister. 

As an expression of religious devotion, “Keep your lamps trimmed and burning” may refer to the biblical parable found in the book of Matthew, Chapter 25, verses 1-23.  In this passage, Jesus tells the story of the wise and foolish virgins.  The virgins had been told that the bridegroom (Christ) would be coming, so they fetched their Lamps, trimmed and lit the wick, and set them burning at the appointed place; however, the bridegroom didn’t arrive at the appointed time and the foolish only brought enough oil for one night.  The foolish returned from buying more oil only to find that they had missed the bridegroom while they were away.  Jesus then tells the disciples to be ready because the day and hour of his return is unknown.   For an African-American slave, the parable may hold a double deliverance – faith that slavery will be abolished and that freedom awaited them in heaven.

Although there is little historical evidence to support this idea, Spirituals such as “Keep Your Lamps!” may have been used by the Underground Railroad to conceal secret codes or messages.  In this context, a slave has to maintain vigilance and watch for a conductor (a person in the Underground Railroad, who moves people to new locations).  “Children, don’t get weary ‘til your work is done,” could refer to the arduous work involved in abolishing slavery, or towards the long journey and frequent stops at safe-houses that a runaway slave would endure while traveling to a free state.  “Christian journey soon be over,” might be a reference to heaven, or to the sentiment that even death would be a welcome deliverance from slavery.

Another version of this spiritual, “Members, Don’t Get Weary, for the work’s ‘mos’ done,” speaks to the sense of community that it takes for a group of people to collectively journey from oppression to freedom, in this Africanized Christian Exodus.  Lines such as: “I’m going down to the river of Jordan,” and “ I’m going to feast on milk and honey” could be interpreted as code for any significant river, (such as the Mississippi or Ohio), that folks needed to cross while traveling towards  the promised land, a safe haven such as Canada.  

For this chorister, the heartbeat-like drumming in Thomas’ piece, conjures deep emotion- yearning, fear, flight, vigilance,…as if a child were hiding in a dark space then forced out into an open run with bare feet slapping hard ground. And within that vigilance lays a deep weariness that history, language, and culture might be lost, without the insistent beat of the Conga drums.                   

Debbie Roberts

Alto, Master Chorus Eastside