Some Valiant Soldier

DESCRIPTION: "I want some valiant soldier here (x3), To help me bear the cross. O hail, Mary, hail (x2), To help me bear the cross." Alternate secomd ver: "For I weep, I weep, I can't hold out; If any mercy, Lord, O pity poor me."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: (Higginson-ArmyLifeInABlackRegiment); 1867 (Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad soldier
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates, p. 45, "Hail, Mary" (2 texts, 2 tunes; the first text is clearly related to this; the second text and tune probably belongs with "Many Thousand Gone (Auction Block)"); p. 50, "Some Valiant Soldier" (1 text, 1 tune)
Higginson-ArmyLifeInABlackRegiment 4, pp. 200-201, "Hail Mary" (1 text)
Roud #12001 and 12008
NOTES [137 words]: Roud splits "Hail Mary" (#12001) and "Some Valiant Soldier" (#12008). This is understandable; both are known only from Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates (at least as far as he and I know), and that book splits them. Very much of the material in Allen/Ware/Garrison-SlaveSongsUnitedStates has now vanished completely, and much of the rest is free-floating material. It is certainly possible that the two are of different origin (they have different tunes). But, given that half the words are the same, it seemed to me more useful in this case to lump them.
As a wild guess, this may have started as a Catholic song with the Marian references. Then it was revised toward Protestantism. (The change is unlikely to have gone the other way, since the non-Marian version would be acceptable to Catholics "as is.") - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: AWG045

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