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WORK-SONGS |
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Of course, the southern housewife views such a situation less pleas-urably, but she is not composing folk-songs about it, so her attitude is negligible.
Some races are by nature musical, while others are not. The Negro is instinctively a creature of rhythm and harmony, though prevented by circumstances and his own inertia from cultivating his talent; while noteworthy individuals of the present day show the possibilities of development when ambition is added to that native gift. But the Negro, even when he makes not the least effort to improve his voice, finds in it great pleasure. It can cheer his lonely hours, and enliven his communal labor, not only reconciling him to the necessity for work, but, in a measure at least, making of that time a joy. Yet now he is singing less at his work than formerly — I do not know why. Perhaps it is because machinery has taken the place of hand work, and stills song with its noise, or perhaps he has come to look down upon the simple joy of singing and has not yet reached the appreciation of the value of that song.
Professor Thomas, in his discussion of the plantation Negro of Texas and his song as he has observed them, gives an economic interpretation of this folk-singing which is interesting, though I am not sure that I agree with him in his conclusions. I quote some disconnected sentences to suggest his ideas.
"The class I am treating of is the semi-rural proletariat. So far as my observation goes, the property-holding Negro never sings. You see, property lends respectability, and respectability is too great a burden for any literature to bear, even our own. . . .
"A great change has come into the Negro's economic life in the past two decades. Its causes have been two. He has come into competition with the European immigrant, whose staying qualities are much greater than his; and agriculture has been changing from a feudalistic to a capitalistic basis, which requires a greater technical ability than the Negro possesses. The result is that he is being steadily pushed into the less inviting and less secure occupations. . . . The Negro, then, sings, because he is losing his economic foothold. This economic insecurity has interfered most seriously with those two primal necessities — work and love." |
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