Lift Every Voice and Sing | Mayfield King
Lift Every Voice and Sing | Mayfield King This Musinique studio session is a contemporary meditation on the iconic hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” Written as a poem in 1900 by James Weldon Johnson and set to music by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson, the hymn was originally performed for a celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. Over time, it became an anthem of the African American freedom struggle—often called the Black National Anthem. (The original poem is public domain.) Our Musinique work-in-progress blends the traditional verses with new poetic expansions, opening with: “I lift every voice like a lantern in the dawn I hold every syllable like a seed of freedom rising.” These new lines follow Musinique’s mission: honoring legacy while amplifying independent, liberatory voices. The session weaves metaphors of seeds, stones, dawn, and perseverance into the original hymn’s themes of collective struggle and faith, creating a bridge between the historic fight for freedom and today’s continuing journey toward justice. This performance lives in the Musinique spirit — protest music, spoken-word lineage, communal uplift, and the belief that the power of music and compassion is a better path for change than hate. Lift Every Voice I lift every voice like a lantern in the dawn I hold every syllable like a seed of freedom rising Lift every voice and sing as the heavens ring Let the harmonies of liberty breathe through our bones Let rejoicing rise high as listening skies Let it roll like a sea of hope we built stone by stone Sing a song full of the faith the dark past taught Sing a song full of the hope this new day brought Facing the rising sun of a morning just begun We march on till victory is won Stony is the road we trod Bitter was the rod that tried to bend our light Yet with a steady beat our weary feet Came to the place our elders dreamed in night We have come over a way watered with tears We have come through a path soaked by the slaughtered years Out from the gloomy past To stand where a gleam breaks through at last God of our weary years God of our silent tears You carried us thus far on the way You led us by might into the light Keep our steps in the path we pray Lest our feet stray from the ground where we met you Keep us true keep us true Lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world forget you Keep us near keep us near Shadowed beneath your hand we stand True to our God True to our native land Rising like a dawn that refuses to dim Till victory calls our name Mayfield King the voice of conscious soul https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/mayfield-king/1846526759 https://open.spotify.com/artist/6vpw3aw6hEJRPHgYGrN3kX?si=_WzqjRRwSQa5AtEUEjyv4w https://mayfield.musinique.com #LiftEveryVoice #LiftEveryVoiceAndSing #MusiniqueSessions #BlackNationalAnthem #JamesWeldonJohnson #FreedomSongs #ProtestMusic #ContemporarySpirituals #StudioSessions #IndependentArtists #Musinique #WorkInProgress #PoetryAndMusic #LanternInTheDawn #MayfieldKing