By Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood
The track is called “Home” and is credited to Gary ‘Mudbone’ Cooper/Dave Stewart/Bob Dylan. Aaron discovered it and the background. Tony however is not impressed.
It was released in 2006 On the Mudbone album Fresh Mud (produced by Dave Stewart). Dylan plays piano on the track. However the opening piano sounds very much like “kum ba yah” – it is described in some reviews as blues piano, but I (Tony) don’t hear that at all.
If you want to check that assertion, have a listen
It really is an old song and was sung by slave workers in America. There is a very early recording sung by H. Wylie, recorded by Robert Winslow Gordon in 1926 – and this is the first known recording of ‘Come by Here,’ – the song that came to be known as ‘Kumbaya.’
It is sung in ‘Gullah,’ – a dialect of the Sea Islands Creole Dialect.
You can download it at this link
The song fell out of fashion by the 1980s after it was picked up by many organisations as a sort of camp fire, everyone-join-in song and has not really been rehabilitated since.
Back to Bob’s recording, Gary ‘Mudbone’ Cooper was in the bands Funkadelic and Parliament. Dave Stewart had recorded Dylan’s piano part at Dylan’s home in 2002, they lifted it and wrote a track around it (along the lines of Worth The Waiting For), thus Dylan gets a credit on the track! The album came out a couple of weeks after Modern Times and got some great reviews
And here are the lyrics…
As we walk this narrow highway On the road to worlds unknown Sometimes its hard to make our way Help us lord to make it home I made a promise yesterday t Hat I will keep in every way And every morning I will pray To make it home I had a feeling yesterday As I was staring at the milky way I knew that things would be okay If I make it home...Oh lordy Hmmm.. I made a promise yesterday That I will keep in every way And every morning I will pray To make it home I had a feeling yesterday As I was staring at the milky way I knew that things would be okay If I make it home Hmmm. I made a promise yall im gonna keep it now Home
Tony is not a fan: “My problem is twofold: that the introduction from Bob on the piano doesn’t really seem to have very much to do with anything else in the song, and what Bob is playing is not an original piece.
“Now the former arises because they simply seem to have bolted Bob’s work onto the rest of the song. OK they might do that for publicity, and if Bob agreed, then he agreed, probably not even remembering at the time what he had played on that piano on that day.
“But everyone must be aware that this is not original Bob Dylan work, and I am surprised it was put forward as Bob as a co-composer. Unless of course the story we have about this being Bob’s only contribution is not true.
“Of course I am not saying we won’t include it in the list of Dylan compositions – he (or his agent or copyright company) has claimed it, so we take their word, but it isn’t something I am going to come back to as a Bob Dylan co-composition.
“Besides, what does my opinion matter? I’m just one fan.”
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Aaron Galbraith and Tony Attwood,
I Absolutely love this recording so much! The accompanying article which covers so much with so few words is totally congruent! It feels like such a gift hearing this right now! It brought back a happy memory of when I was 17. I looked after my sisters farm for the summer while she and my brother -in-law were out of the province. It was mostly just caring for there four horses and a great blue heron that could not fly. Anyway this one Appaloosa colt was crazy for me singing to him and so when I cleaned the barn and pushed the wheel barrow he would bite my shoulder. It was heavy work and so all I could manage to sing was Kum-Ba-Yah which I had learned in girl guides! 🙂 I plan on listening to this several times over the music is really unique and soulful!
Thank you
Proud this musico-peasant is that he immediatey recognized the tune before it’s name even gets mentioned (lol).
I have listened to this several times now and I think I like it more and more! There is so much soul and I love the lyrics
One more thing is I want to say thank you for the introduction to Mudbone it is just what I needed today and will enjoy for many days to come! Wow I love this incredible music and it content!!!
Glad you like the track Denise, I like it myself and the album is pretty good too.
I do understand Tony’s issue with the “Dylan-ness” of the piece though..he was clearly just playing around with Kumbaya, although i do think it does fit in nicely with the rest of the track (each to their own!). If nothing else its nice to hear Bob playing some lovely piano!
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http://thebobdylanproject.com/Song/id/4894/Home
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