Remarks:
The song begins at about the 5:56 minute mark.
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
This is the song that gave Frederick Douglass the idea to become a runaway slave:
“‘Run to Jesus’ … was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.”
Many religious songs that Black people sang in slave times had double meanings like that.
The famous version of this song (meaning the one White cultural leaders in New York knew) was sung by the Fisk Jubilee Singers, but I cound not find it on YouTube, not even by the present-day Jubilee Singers.
See also:
Lyrics:
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
He will be our dearest friend
And will help us to the end
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Oh I thought i heard ‘em say
There were lions in the way
I don’t expect to say much longer here
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Many mansions there will be
One for you and one for me
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Run to Jesus, shun the danger
I don’t expect to stay much longer here
Source: Andrew Calhoun, “My Bondage and Freedom” (1855) by Frederick Douglass.
Abagond 
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