Flee As A Bird: A Song History
The words of "Flee As A Bird" are by Mary Stanley Bunce Dana, later Mary Dana Shindler, a hymn writer born in Beaufort, South Carolina, in 1810, who published under the name Mary S. B. Dana.[1] Hymnary.org lists Psalm 11:1 among the scripture passages associated with the text.[1] The song appears as "Flee As A Bird To Your Mountain" in her Northern Harp, a book of sacred songs fitted to popular tunes for piano and guitar; the scanned copy, marked as a fifth edition, carries an 1841 copyright notice and a printed cover dated 1843, and it labels the music a Spanish melody.[2]
Utagawa Hiroshige, Roses and Sparrow, woodblock print, ink and color on paper, ca. 1833. Shown for its bird; it has no connection to the hymn.
Oliver Ditson of Boston published the song as separate sheet music in 1857, identified as a sacred piece from the Northern Harp.[3] Hymnary.org counts more than a hundred hymnals that print it.[1] It was recorded early and often: the Discography of American Historical Recordings lists Berliner discs by singer J. W. Myers (dated either 1895 or 1898) and by Sousa's Band (April 1898), followed by many Victor recordings, among them one by Louise Homer in 1916.[4]
As a general custom, a New Orleans jazz funeral starts with the band playing dirges at a slow walking pace and turns to up-tempo music and dancing once the burial is done.[5] A Library of Congress essay on Jelly Roll Morton's 1938 recorded interviews with Alan Lomax names "Flee As the Bird to the Mountain" among the songs in them.[6] A Circle 78-rpm set of Morton recordings titles one sequence "New Orleans Funeral," with this song as Part 2 and "Oh, Didn't He Ramble" as Part 3.[7] A 2023 Jazz Journal review of City Of A Million Dreams, a documentary about the city's funeral parades, lists the song among the pieces heard in the film, credited to clarinetist Michael White, trumpeter Gregg Stafford and others.[8] Judy House and Kirk House include a three-part arrangement of it in The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts, Book 1, a collection of eleven ensemble arrangements.[9]
Sources
- Hymnary.org: "Flee as a Bird".
- Internet Archive: "Northern Harp" (Mary S. B. Dana, 1843).
- Library of Congress: "Flee as a bird" (Oliver Ditson, 1857).
- Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Mary Dana Shindler".
- 64 Parishes: "Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades".
- Library of Congress: "Jelly Roll Morton interviews conducted by Alan Lomax (1938)".
- Internet Archive: "Jelly Roll Morton, Vol. II - way down yonder...".
- Jazz Journal: "City Of A Million Dreams".
- Judy House and Kirk House: "The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of Its Parts, Book 1".
- Image: Utagawa Hiroshige, Roses and Sparrow, woodblock print, ink and color on paper, ca. 1833. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.