Origins
The song's author and origins are unknown. It is noted in American Ballads and Folk Songs, an anthology of songs collected by the Lomaxes throughout the 1930s and 1940s; that the song is known throughout Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee and was titled "Never Said a Mumbalin' Word." However, the song originates back to when the United States endorsed slavery, assuming the song pre-dates 1865. It is known to be a companion piece to, and possibly holds the same author(s) as, "Were You There (When They Crucified My Lord)?", another spiritual.
Read more about this topic: He Never Said A Mumblin' Word
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
“The settlement of America had its origins in the unsettlement of Europe. America came into existence when the European was already so distant from the ancient ideas and ways of his birthplace that the whole span of the Atlantic did not widen the gulf.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“Compare the history of the novel to that of rock ‘n’ roll. Both started out a minority taste, became a mass taste, and then splintered into several subgenres. Both have been the typical cultural expressions of classes and epochs. Both started out aggressively fighting for their share of attention, novels attacking the drama, the tract, and the poem, rock attacking jazz and pop and rolling over classical music.”
—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
“The origins of clothing are not practical. They are mystical and erotic. The primitive man in the wolf-pelt was not keeping dry; he was saying: “Look what I killed. Aren’t I the best?””
—Katharine Hamnett (b. 1948)