Turtle Dove Drooped His Wings

DESCRIPTION: Leader lines out the first line of each verse, repeated twice by all, and tag added, as in "Turtle dove drooped his wings ... Goin' on Zion Hill to sing." Chorus: "Adam and Eve don't tell it to me Meet me at the door don't tell it to me."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (LomaxCD1712)
KEYWORDS: ritual Bible nonballad religious bird
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
DT, DROPWING
RECORDINGS:
Bessie Jones and the Georgia Sea Island Singers, "Turkle Dove" (on LomaxCD1712)
NOTES [189 words]: Lines from the "dove" verse -- "Well, the little turtle dove droop his wing Oh, hist the windah let the dove come in An' he gone on Zion's Hill to sing Hist the windah let the dove come in" -- are shared by "Norah Hist the Windah," so that the dove in LomaxCD1712 is Noah's dove. See Parrish p. 134, indexed here as "Let the Dove Come In."
Another verse is "When I get to heaven I know the rule ... Keep right down to the bathing pool." - BS
The latter, I suspect, a reference to the Pool of Beth-zatha/Bethsaida/Bethesda in in John 5:2-9. (The name of the pool difference in the manuscripts -- there are five different readings just among the dozen or so most important manuscripts. The King James Version called it Bethesda, as do among others the NASB, NAB, and early NIV; the Catholic Rheims edition has Bethsaida; the NRSV has Beth-zatha. Looking at the manuscripts, I'd have read "Bethsaida," with "Bethzatha" as second choice; "Bethesda" is almost certainly wrong.) This pool, when the waters moved, was said to have healing powers. The story in John 5 is of how Jesus healed a crippled man who could not get into the pool. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: DTdropwi

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