My Mother's On That Train

DESCRIPTION: "Well," (("my mother/sister/father)'s on that train, Going around the mountain" (2x).) "The bells go ding, dong, The whistle go wah"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1967 (USMississippi01)
KEYWORDS: nonballad death train religious
FOUND IN: US(SE)
RECORDINGS:
Mary Alice and Alan McGowan, "My Mother's On That Train" (on USMississippi01)
NOTES [213 words]: The description is all of the three verse spiritual as sung by Mary Alice and Alan McGowan.
Regarding the symbolism of the train as death in Spirituals:
"In their Prometheus' struggle towards the light, the singers saw death as a necessary prerequisite in order to enter into the real world. Often the singers' symbol of death was a boat or ship crossing the river of Jordan. Here original symbols were preserved to denote death:
Tis the old ship of Zion,
Get on board, get on board.
"However, a new concept was retained by a vital symbolism in the slave's everyday experience. Death was emphasized as the 'same train.' This train carried off his mother, father, sister, and brother. The continuation of this process of death can be seen in the repetition of the term 'same train' three times. The train will be back tomorrow for him.
Same train, same train, same train
Carry my mother,
Same train be back to-morrer.
"Death was not an end, but the means of entering into God's eternity. As heaven was the true home, eternity was the true time. This view has many elements of the utopianism of Voltaire's Candide."
(Weyman B. McLaughlin, "Symbolism and Mysticism in the Spirituals" in Phylon (1960-) Vol. 24, No. 1 (1st Qtr., 1963 (available online by JSTOR)), pp. 74-75.) - BS
Last updated in version 5.1
File: RcMMOThT

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