Bles’ My Soul an’ Gone

“Bles’ My Soul an’ Gone” is a spiritual arrangement for voice and piano by Eva Jessye. The song is the fourth arrangement included in Jessye’s book My Spirituals (1927). In the song’s preface, Jessye describes this song’s connection to her Aunt Harriet. As a child, Jessye would be sent to Aunt Harriet’s small country farm for two months every summer. Jessye found this farm to be desolate and silent, as it sat on the edge of the prairie and nothing could be seen but endless grassy plains. Jessye writes, “The one thing that made the spot endurable was Aunt Harriet’s singing for a glorious voice dwelt in her frail body. When we had finished the chores for the night we would sit out under the stars for a while before going to bed and I would listen in rapture while she sang, ‘Bles’ My Soul An’ Gone.’ She sang the first two lines, ‘I wouldn’t be a sinnah, I tell you de reason why,’ with a weird distant tone that seemed to travel on the night wind to the furthest roll of the plain. It was the most beautiful singing of Spirituals I have ever heard.”

Date: 1927Composer: Eva JessyeText: SpiritualSong Collection: My Spirituals

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