"Mary Don't You Weep" (alternately titled "O Mary Don't You Weep", "Oh Mary, Don't You Weep, Don't You Mourn", or variations thereof) is a Spiritual that originates from before the American Civil War[1] – thus it is what scholars call a "slave song," "a label that describes their origins among the enslaved," and it contains "coded messages of hope and resistance."[2] It is one of the most important of Negro spirituals.[1] It is listed as number 11823 in the Roud Folk Song Index.
The first recording of the song was by the Fisk Jubilee Singers in 1915.[1][5] The folklorist Alan Lomax recorded several traditional variants of the song in the 1930s, 40s and 50s across the United States, from Mississippi[6] to Ohio[7] to Michigan,[8] including one version by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) of Louisiana in 1935.[9]
The best known recordings were made by the vocal gospel group The Caravans in 1958, with Inez Andrews as the lead singer, and The Swan Silvertones in 1959.[1][10] "Mary Don't You Weep" became The Swan Silvertones' greatest hit,[11] and lead singer Claude Jeter's interpolation "I'll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name" [12] served as Paul Simon's inspiration to write his 1970 song "Bridge over Troubled Water".[11][13] The spiritual's lyric God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water the fire next time inspired the title for The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin's 1963 account of race relations in America
