Motherless Child

Gurt Western Concert, Bristol Beaon, 7th Feb 2015

This is a traditional African-American spiritual, often known as Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child. Spirituals were religious songs born out of the bitter experience of slavery in the United States. The children of enslaved women were often sold off as chattels, leaving both mother and child bereft. This moving song bears witness to this terrible practice and the heartbreak it caused.

As with many other songs in this tradition, the great baritone (and political activist) Paul Robeson more or less made the song his own.