(Black Spiritual, 19th c., with some lyrical and melodical adaptations)

The melody used here is mostly inspired by my favorite version of Mary Had A Baby that I've ever heard. And that is the version sung by the great Paul Robeson. In my opinion, nothing matches Robeson's soulful intensity, beauty, and sadness, when it comes to modern interpretations of this spiritual.

Some important context, from C. Michael Hawn's essay, "History of Hymns: 'Mary Had a Baby'" (December 2022) :

"The origins of this Christmas spiritual are shrouded in the struggles of enslaved Africans. Folklorist Natalie Curtis-Burlin (1875–1921), noted for her work in making early recordings of the Hampton Singers between 1915 and 1917, provides one of the arrangements of the spiritual that Frank Damrosch (1859–1937), director of the Musical Art Society (Institute of Musical Art, later the Julliard School, New York City), presented as “two old negro Christmas songs, collected and arranged by Mrs. Curtis-Burlin, which to the writer’s knowledge, have never been done by a white choral body before” (Grant, 1919, p. 36). The two Christmas spirituals were “Mary’s Baby” and “Dar’s a Star in the East.” The article notes:

The first song was heard at the Penn School in St. Helena, South Carolina, where the Negroes are perhaps less touched by white civilization than any other place in the United States. . . Here the writer heard sung the weird song refrain used in the beginning of her arrangement of “Mary Had a Baby.” She also heard the song sung by the younger native of St. Helena somewhat modernized into a major melody. Hence in the arrangement of the Musical Art Society, Mrs. Curtis-Burlin has carefully adopted both the major and minor versions into one (Grant, 1919, p. 36)."

And, Hawn continues:

"The metaphor of the train, a newer nineteenth-century development in transportation, is common in spirituals, most likely as an eschatological reference or, perhaps, a veiled reference to the underground railroad. Curtis-Burlin explains the metaphor this way:

The “Gospel Train,” a familiar bit of negro imagery, forms the refrain of the song. To the unlettered black man, the first railroad was as great a wonder as the Bible miracle, and it offered the slave poet many a poetic symbol. To “git on b’od” the Gospel Train which runs on the rails made by “Heavenly Truth” meant to find religion, and in this song, the connection of ideas would seem to imply an urging of humanity to the birthplace of “Mary’s Baby King Jesus” lest the train of Salvation leave before the arrival of those tardy ones who “keep a’comin though the train done gon’.” (Grant, 1919, p. 36)

Composer and folksong enthusiast Elizabeth Poston (1905–1987) found the train metaphor incongruous—the result of “the imaginative impact . . . of the advent of the railroad, 1830–40” (Poston, 1970)."

(quoted from www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-mary-had-a-baby)