Come Dance And Sing: A Song History

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"Come Dance And Sing" belongs to the Shakers' Era of Manifestations, also called Mother Ann's Work, a stretch of visions and spirit messages that lasted from 1837 into the mid-1850s.^[1][2] Edward D. Andrews, in his 1940 study The Gift To Be Simple, reports that the visionist who received the song in 1838 credited it to the spirit of Issachar Bates, Sr., who had died the year before.^[2] Andrews calls it "a spirited round dance," and in his account the singing was meant to grow livelier as the tune reached its refrain-like close.^[2]

Born in 1758, Bates fought in the Revolutionary War, later became a Shaker, and played a leading part in carrying the faith west, while his many hymn texts and songs left a mark on Shaker worship and belief; he died in 1837.^[3] Andrews adds that Bates had played the fife in the Revolution and was among the first three missionaries the mother church had in the West, where the Shaker gospel reached Ohio and Kentucky.^[2]

Andrews printed the melody with its words as number 21 in the tunes section of his book, which Dover reissued in 1962.^[2][4] Shelley Stevens includes it in Baker's Dozen #4: Shaker Music, a book of traditional Shaker melodies in DAD tuning with standard notation and dulcimer tablature for each piece, published by Fingers Of Steel.^[5]

Sources

1. Ohio Memory (Ohio History Connection): "Shakers and Spirits: The Era of Manifestations in Ohio".
2. Internet Archive: "Edward D. Andrews, The Gift To Be Simple: Songs, Dances and Rituals of the American Shakers (1940)".
3. Project MUSE: "Carol Medlicott, Issachar Bates: A Shaker's Journey".
4. East Carolina University Libraries: "The Gift to Be Simple (Dover, 1962)".
5. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #4: Shaker Music".
6. Image: United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (“Shakers”), Rocking Chair, maple, birch, 1820–50. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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