Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

 "Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child", also "Motherless Child", is a traditional spiritual. It dates back to the era of slavery in the United States.

An early performance of the song was in the 1870s by the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Commonly heard during the Civil rights movement in the United States, it has many variations and has been recorded widely. 

The song is an expression of pain and despair as the singer compares their hopelessness to that of a child who has been torn from its parents. Under one interpretation, the repetition of the word "sometimes" offers a measure of hope, as it suggests that at least "sometimes" the singer does not feel like a motherless child. 

Like many other African American spirituals, this song conveys the sadness that many enslaved people felt at being such a “long way from home,” both in the sense of being far away from their native Africa and in the sense of being forcibly separated from family and friends. 

To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here. Enjoy!

Lyrics:

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
Sometimes I feel like a motherless child
A long way from home, a long way from home

Sometimes I feel like I'm almost done
Sometimes I feel like I'm almost done
Sometimes I feel like I'm almost done
And a long, long way from home, a long way from home

True believer
True believer
A long, long way from home
A long, long way from home