Go Tell it On The Mountain is an African-American spiritual rhyme from 1865. It was compiled by John Wesley Work Jr., the first African-American to collect folksongs. He was an educationalist and a songwriter.
The song became famous as a Christmas gospel. It describes the Nativity of Christ (the birth of Jesus). It has four stanzas. The first stanza is also a refrain and is repeated after each stanza with four lines each.
Read on to know more about the origins and history of the Christmas song. And as always, we got the lyrics ready for you to save and print.
Written Lyrics
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!
While shepherds kept their watching
O’er silent flocks by night
Behold throughout the heavens
There shone a holy light
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!
The shepherds feared and trembled
When lo! Above the Earth
Rang out the angel chorus
That hailed our Savior’s birth
Go, tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go, tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born!
Down in a lowly manger
Our humble Christ was born
And God sent us salvation
That blessed Christmas morn
Printable Lyrics
Download the printable PDF lyrics of the Christmas song by clicking on this link.
Photo Lyrics
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Video Links
Watch the animated video of the rhyme here:
Origins and History
John Wesley Work, Jr. loved music even though he had a Masters in Latin and taught ancient Latin and Greek. He took up the tough task of collecting and compiling folk and spiritual songs created by African-Americans.
In those days, most songs and stories were passed orally when African-Americans worked on the plantations. The lack of records made his work difficult. However, John Work compiled two collections. “Go Tell it On The Mountain” is a part of the second collection published in 1826. The lyrics changed a little over the years, but the theme remains the same.
Peter, Paul, and Mary, an American folk band, adapted the song in 1963 and re-titled it Tell It on a Mountain. Their version referred to the Book of Exodus, but it was more about the civil rights movement from the same period. The Wailers recorded another version in 1970, which also referred to the civil rights movement.
Go Tell it On The Mountain has a rhythmic beat that made it popular among Jazz, Blues, and early Rock ‘n Roll fans. The song follows the ABCB rhyme scheme, where the second line rhymes with the fourth line in each stanza.
In some versions, the line ‘That Jesus Christ is born!’ is replaced by Jesus Christ is Lord. However, the original version is more famous and perfectly suited to play for Nativity.
James Baldwin wrote a semi-autobiographical novel with the same title. The book was published in 1953. It has a religious background but is not related to the original spiritual song.
FAQs
John Wesley Work, Jr. was assisted by his brother Frederick Jerome Work when he started collecting various African-American folksongs. The folksongs were spiritual and called slave songs as a majority of the community worked as slaves on the plantations.
The song was published in the book titled Religious Folk Songs of The Negro, as Sung on The Plantations in 1909.
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