Satan's a Liah
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-08-22

Day 159 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Sandburg writes: "In Duluth, Minnesota, I heard Margaret Moore Nye, of a Richmond, Virginia, family, deliver this spiritual as she heard it in the kitchen of her girlhood home. She seated herself in a chair, crossed her knees, threw her head back, closed her eyes, patted the time with a foot, impersonating the nanny in Richmond from whose lips she heard it many years."

This was first published in 1927 by Sandburg in the American Songbag. In 1928 Vance Randolph published a text titled "Oh You Cant Go to Heaven", which is remarkably similar to "Ain’t Gonna Grieve My Lord No More" which has been most widely known since at least the mid 20th century as a call & response children’s camp song and is the same tune as the Sandburg song. However, early versions of this song point to its origin in the late 19th century or the early 20th century as an African American Gospel song. Over the years this serious, religious African American Gospel song has turned into a humorous song. (You can find my recording of the humorous version https://youtu.be/zz64crWz9Ns.)