Bright Morning Stars
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Transcription: by Darryl D. Bush
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Lyrics:
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
Bright morning stars are rising,
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
Oh, where are our dear mothers, (3x)
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
They are down in the valley praying, (3x)
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
Oh where are our dear fathers, (3x)
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
They have gone to heaven shouting, (3x)
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
Bright morning stars are rising, (3x)
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
An alternate verse structure:
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is breaking in ma’ soul.
Oh, where are our dear mothers, (2x)
They are down in the valley praying,
Day is a-breaking in my soul.
Oh where are our dear fathers? (2x)
They're across the valley workin',
Day is breaking in ma’ soul.
Oh where are our dear sisters? (2x)
They have gone to heaven shouting!
Day is breaking in ma’ soul!
Oh where is ma’ dear Saviour? (2x)
He is in ma’ heart forever!
Day is breaking in ma’ soul!
"Bright Morning Stars are Rising" is a traditional American folk<br> song/hymn from the Appalachian region. I don't know the history of<br> this. In a lot of Internet discussions, no one can come up with a<br> source older than the 20th century. It is not included in any of the<br> shape-note hymnals in my collection.<br> <br> "Bright Morning Stars" appears in Ruth Crawford Seeger's<br> "American Folk Songs for Christmas" (Doubleday, 1953),<br> where she credits it to "AAFS 1379 A1", that is, from the<br> Archive of American Folksong at the Library of Congress. <br> "1379 A1" identifies the original field recording where the<br> source is identified as "Kentucky". The song also appears<br> on the Folkways LP of the same title (FC 7553), sung and<br> played by her daughters Peggy, Barbara and Penny, assisted<br> by a group of children from the South Boston Music School.<br> Even though Seeger included it in a book of<br> Christmas songs, there is nothing in it that is about<br> Christmas and I have, therefore, included it here in Hymns.<br> <br> Some people find a similarity to "Watch the Stars", a song from<br> St. Helena Island, South Carolina, one of the Sea Islands of <br> Georgia and Sourth Carolina where slaves (and later, the descendants<br> of slaves) kept alive a strong tradition of song and story going<br> back to African styles. Except for the repetitions, the melody and lyrics are quite different<br> from "Bright Morning Stars".<br> <br> In 1968, Robin Christenson rediscovered the song in the<br> Seeger book and arranged it for four voices. Robin & Ellen Christenson<br> and Tony & Irene Saletan sang it at the 1968 Fox Hollow Festival, where<br> it was picked up by many other singers. It rapidly entered the common<br> repertoire and, within a few years, was recorded by The Pennywhistlers,<br> The Young Tradition, Pentangle and on Tony & Irene's Folk Legacy LP.<br> <br> It has also been widely sung in Kentucky. It was recorded by the<br> Stanley Brothers and also by the Kentucky singer George Tucker.<br>
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