Kingdom Coming
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Kingdom Coming or The Year of Jubilo is a popular song dating from the American Civil War, in 1863, around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation. Words and music were composed by Henry Clay Work.
While its lyrics are stereotypical African-American dialect of the time, the song celebrates new-found freedom, by slaves whose master has been frightened away by the Union military forces.
The strongly ethnic lyrics are seldom heard nowadays. The song is usually played as a lively instrumental, as with the Ken Burns documentary on the Civil War.
[edit] Sample lyrics
Taken from the website shown, and rendered in normal English:
- Say, darkies, have you seen the master, with the moustache on his face,
- Go along the road some time this morning, like he's going to leave the place?
- He'd seen some smoke way up the river, where the Lincoln gunboats lay;
- He took his hat, and left very sudden, and I expect he's run away!
- The master runs, ha-ha! The darky stays, ho-ho!
- It must be now the Kingdom Coming, and the Year of Jubilo!
