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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. "He never said a mumbalin’ word."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press. Web. 5 Jan. 2025.<
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Chicago style (see The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Ed.)
. "He never said a mumbalin’ word."
The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology. Canterbury Press, accessed January 5, 2025,
http://www.hymnology.co.uk/h/he-never-said-a-mumbalin’-word.