My Lord, What a Mornin’
For Sunday, November 30, 2025
My Lord, What a Mornin’
By David Jolliffe
At the 11 am service on November 30, the St. Paul’s choir will sing the famous African-American spiritual, “My Lord, What a Morning!” As with many spirituals, the text does not have a single author or composer but was probably written collectively. Many spirituals were indeed written by enslaved people, but “My Lord, What a Morning” was more likely written by free Black people in a northern city. An early version was published in Philadelphia in 1801 by Richard Allen. The text of the spiritual refers to multiple passages in scripture, from falling stars in Revelation and Matthew to the trumpet blasts in 1 Corinthians and 1 Thessalonians.
Here are the lyrics that the famous African-American composer William Dawson used in his 1927 setting of the song:
My Lord, what a morning / My Lord what a morning / My Lord, what a morning / When the stars begin to fall
You’ll hear the trumpet sound / To wake the nations underground / Looking to my God’s right hand / When the stars begin to fall
You’ll hear the sinner moan / To wake the nations underground / Looking to my God’s right hand / When the stars begin to fall
You’ll hear the Christian shout / To wake the nations underground / Looking to my God’s right hand / When the stars begin to fall
Some versions of the hymn dating from the mid-1800s use mourning rather than morning in the title and lyrics. Though most modern hymnals use “morning,” the “mourning” spelling has persisted, and it resonates. After all, it is deeply biblical to struggle with the day of the Lord and the second coming of Jesus: Is that day a morning in which hope dawns on the horizon or a mourning in which the old world trembles, falls apart, and passes away? (Spoiler: it’s both.) The publication history of “My Lord, What a Morning” suggests that the morning and the mourning alike are important for our spirituality.
The music that accompanies the text is anonymous. Like the text, it may have been composed by groups of worshipers singing and improvising together. It is named for the famous Black composer Harry T. Burleigh, who popularized many spirituals among white audiences and narrowed the perceived gap between white Western art music and the music of Black Americans. Listen for the music’s deliberate and flexible pacing, its expressive latitude, and its ability to paint a whole musical picture, one phrase at a time.