ancient version of "Good Shepherd"
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Jimmie Strothers: Blood-Strained Banders
Collected from the aging blind blues player Jimmie Strothers as "Keep Away from the Bloodstained Banders," by Alan Lomax and Harold Spivacke on behalf of the Library of Congress in 1936.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GAQrUW-XP0&feature=share
"'Good Shepherd' was a song that I learned from a guy named Roger Perkins, who was a folk singer, and my friend Tom Hobson, and it was a great spiritual that I really liked," said Jorma. "It's a psychedelic folk-rock song."
"Strothers accompanied himself on four-string banjo, an instrument upon which his skill was well-regarded. Coming from the Appalachian part of Virginia, Strothers had lost his sight in a mine explosion and had made a living playing on street corners and in medicine shows. Blind, itinerant street singers like Strothers were part of the tradition that kept African-American religious music alive. The recording was made at the Virginia State Prison Farms in Lynn, Virginia, where Strothers was serving time for having murdered his wife with an axe. Lomax thought prisons were a good place to find old songs, and was also interested in illustrating the interaction of white and black music.
...Much speculation has arisen about what the title means. Lomax commented in "Our Sining Country": "The name was probably a corruption of "Blood Stained Bandits". Art Thieme thinks the name could be "Blood-Stained Banners."
http://www.bluegrassmessengers.com/blood-strained-banders--spiritual-jim...
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
If you want to get to heaven,
If you want to get to heaven,
Just over on the other shore,
Keep out the way of the blood-stained banders
O good shepherd, feed my sheep
CHORUS: Some for Paul,
Some for Silas,
Some for to make-a my heart rejoice.
Don't you hear the lambs a-crying?
O good shepherd, feed my sheep.
If you want to get to heaven,
Just over on the other shore,
Keep out the way of the gunshot devil
O good shepherd, feed my sheep
(Chorus)
If you want to get to heaven,
Just over on the other shore,
Keep out the way of the long-tongued liars
O good shepherd, feed my sheep
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Strangha
Electric Tuna did a sweet
Electric Tuna did a sweet version Wednesday night in Salt Lake.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Greasyheart
Blood Stained Banders, not
Blood Stained Banders, not Banners, is the original name the song was know by
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alan R
Of course these lyrics have
Of course these lyrics have been researched before. But like any song from oral tradition, things are subject to interpretation. From a music blog:
The song, under its original title, “Let Thy Kingdom, Blessed Savior” was written by Methodist evangelist John A. Granade. Granade died in 1807, so the song was written during that year or earlier.
ventually, the song was titled “Good Shepherd” and its lyrical content changed from “Some for Paul, some for Apollos, Some for Cephas – none agree” to “One for Paul, one for Silas, one for to make – my heart rejoice.” This may have been done to make the song easier to sing as the reference to I Corinthians 3. Apollos seems to be more difficult to sing than Paul’s companion on his second missionary journey.
The substitution may have been made because Paul and Silas have been paired in song before in “Old Time Religion.” There also is a meter problem with Cephas as it really should be a one syllable name or word to match with Paul in the previous line. The loss of Apollos and Cephas and the inclusion of Silas made the Corinthian reference obsolete – so the message “one for to make – my heart rejoice” takes into consideration of Paul and Silas in the Phillipian Jail rejoicing through their singing hymns.
http://zeegrooves.blogspot.com/2010/05/jefferson-airplane-good-shepherd....
As with songs centuries old, lyrics and titles often change via oral tradition. Alan Lomax even collected a version of it for the Library of Congress in 1936 named “Blood Stained Banders,” which was a misinterpretation of the lyric: “Stay out of the way of the blood stained bandit.”