He never said a mumbalin’ word

He never said a mumbalin’ word. African American spiritual, date unknown The first line of this spiritual is ‘They crucified my Lord’, but it is more frequently known by the repeated lines in each stanza: They crucified my Lord,and he never said a mumbalin’ word;they crucified my Lord,and he never said a mumbalin’ word,not a word, not a word, not a word.  This has something in common with ‘Were you there when they crucified my Lord’* in addition to its painful subject. Jon Michael Spencer comments that the aforementioned spiritual and this one are exceptions to African American ‘sorrow songs’ that commence on a low note of dejection, and typically conclude on a high pitch of praise...

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