Instrumentation: Baez singing and playing guitar – typical of the ‘60s folk singer/songwriter.
Texture: The song involves a main melody with guitar accompaniment of main chords. While Baez’s voice is not very full, she sings out very strongly and with conviction, which creates a somewhat strident yet noticeable sound.
Melody: Since the melody is a spiritual, the melody is once again fairly simple. Baez adds her own ornamentations and improvisations after establishing the core melody, which helps to add interest.
Form: Once again, the verses and chorus to make one core melody with slightly changing verses. Therefore, I feel like it is a modified version of strophic form.
Origins: Like Odetta’s ‘Glory Glory’, this song is a ‘60s version of an old African-American spiritual. This contributes to the song’s simple melody, repetitive nature, and hopeful lyrics.
Lyrics: The main lyrics of the song are “We shall overcome / We shall overcome some day / Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe / We shall overcome some day.” In these lyrics, the indomitable hope of the African slaves is obvious: however, Baez used this song as a message of hope against oppression of quite a different nature: the Vietnam War. During the ‘60s, Baez, along with many other folk artists, used African-American spirituals to express anti-war sentiments.
Range: While the song’s core melody varies very little in range, during the verses Baez harmonizes quite high, often holding out the ‘day’ in ‘today’ on a high note for an extended time. In doing so, Baez adds interest to the song’s melody, as her high voice holds a somewhat haunting quality to it. In addition, I found it interesting to compare her speaking voice, which is low and somewhat monotone, with her singing voice, which is very melodic and somewhat ethereal.
Personal Response: I learned this as a sing-along during my elementary years, and studied it in the context of slavery in middle school – so while I was well-acquainted with the song’s context in slavery, I was surprised to realize that folk-singers evoked it in their anti-war movement in the ‘60s. I was drawn to Baez’s words in the beginning, when she said, “It’s an old song and it’s a trite song, but in a new context it’s a beautiful song.” However, I’m not totally sure I agree with her, both in her assessment of the song, and her (and other folk singers’) decision to utilize spirituals for their war protesting. In my opinion, ‘overcoming’ the extreme prejudice of slavery was a much bigger obstacle. While pioneering free speech is a noble cause, I have to wonder at the integrity of their actions.
Yes, appropriating this song -- invoked by Martin Luther King in the speech before his assassination - was not universally lauded. And yet, there is a shared sense of struggle. America in the Vietnam years was a different place, hard to describe now in retrospect -- the intensity of feeling about this cause was unprecedented as well.
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