“I Can’t Stay Away” is a spiritual arrangement for voice and piano by Eva Jessye. The song is the thirteenth arrangement included in Jessye’s book My Spirituals (1927). In the song’s preface, Jessye describes its connection to “Aunt” Betty James. Everyone in Jessye’s neighborhood sought advice from Aunt Betty, who sat in a chair on her porch to watch Spring Street’s “goin’s and comin’s” for over forty years. Due to a medical condition Aunt Betty could not attend church, but she would join the services from her own porch, loudly singing with the congregation and following dismal funeral services word-for-word. Jessye writes, “When news of her death reached me a few years ago, instantly there flashed through my mind the words of an old funeral song which she delighted in singing, never seeming at all depressed by the tragic fatality of the sentiment…’Down to the grave yahd we must go…’”
Print vitals & song textAnd I can’t stay away,
Oh I can’t stay away,
Lord, I can’t stay away,
I ain’t a gonna die in a Egypt lan.’
Down to the grave yard we must go
To see dem long graves, see dem short,
De dust begin to roll! De coffin soun’!
Frien’s an’ relations standin’ ‘round
An’ I can’t stay away,
Oh I can’t stay away,
Lord, I can’t stay away,
I ain’t a gonna die in a Egypt lan!
Hum__
Source: Jessye, Eva. My Spirituals. New York: Robbins-Engel, 1927.
