Alison Krauss made this song quite popular in the 2000 Coen brothers' film “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? where the lyrics were changed to “as I went down to the River to pray.” This was done, presumably, to adjust to the fact the scene was filmed next to a river, not a valley. This old Black spiritual was first collected in 1867 in a book entitled Slave Songs of the United States. Although the lyrics were apparently from slave sources the title may have been borrowed from “The Good Old Way,” whic...
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