Lyrics
The lyrics below are preserved exactly as documented in nineteenth-century primary sources. Dialect, spelling, and phrasing reflect the living tradition of the communities who created and sang these songs. Standardizing the language would erase the historical record. See our editorial standards for more.
Refrain:
My soul is a witness for my Lord,
My soul is a witness for my Lord.
You read in the Bible and you understand,
Methuselah was the oldest man;
He lived nine hundred and sixty-nine,
He died and went to heaven, Lord, in due time.
Oh, Methuselah was a witness for my Lord,
Methuselah was a witness for my Lord.
Now Samson went out at-a one time,
And he got him a wife just-a one time;
And he thought he'd take a walk,
Talkin' to his wife, Lord, all about the time.
Now Samson was a witness for my Lord,
Samson was a witness for my Lord.
Now Daniel was a Hebrew child,
He went to pray to his God awhile;
The king at once for Daniel did send,
And he put him right down in the lion's den.
Oh, Daniel was a witness for my Lord,
Daniel was a witness for my Lord.
Historical Context
"My Soul Is a Witness for My Lord" is a narrative spiritual that assembles a roll call of biblical figures — Methuselah, Samson, Daniel — each summoned as a "witness" to the power and faithfulness of God. It was carried by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, who recorded it early in the twentieth century, and it was documented by John Wesley Work and James Weldon Johnson.
The word "witness" carries the full weight of its meaning in the tradition: a witness is one who has seen and can testify. Each biblical figure named in the song "witnessed" God's power in his own life, and their testimonies accumulate as evidence in a kind of sacred court.
Cultural Significance
The genius of the song lies in its final turn. Having called Methuselah, Samson, and Daniel as witnesses, the singer claims the same standing: "My soul is a witness." The believer places their own experience of God alongside that of the great figures of scripture — not as their inferior, but as one more voice in the same testimony.
For an enslaved people whose testimony was legally worthless — who could not testify against a white person in court, whose word carried no weight before the law — the declaration "my soul is a witness" was a radical assertion. It claimed a standing in the highest court of all, where the testimony of the lowliest soul counts as fully as that of Daniel or Samson. The song makes each singer a credible witness in the one tribunal that could not be rigged against them.
The story of Daniel in the lions' den, recurring throughout the spirituals, held special resonance: the faithful man thrown to the beasts by an unjust power and delivered unharmed by God.
Scholarly Notes
James Weldon Johnson noted the spirituals' persistent return to figures of miraculous deliverance — Daniel, the Hebrew children, David — and their function as a gallery of proof that God rescues the faithful from the hands of the powerful.
John Wesley Work documented the narrative or "story" spirituals as a distinct type, in which biblical episodes were retold in the community's own idiom, often with humor and vivid invention, as in the song's genial handling of Samson.
The Fisk Jubilee Singers' recordings of "My Soul Is a Witness" helped fix the song in the concert repertoire, and it has been arranged and performed widely, its cumulative roll-call structure making it a favorite for both solo and choral interpretation.