Mary

They say that the song is about a certain Mary: Martha's and Lazarus' sister. Maria and Martha pledged for the resuscitation of Lazarus. A miracle like this wipes hesitations about whether or not Jesus is the Messiah or only a prophet. If so, the song is a religious statement.

But she is not the only Mary in the Bible. Maybe she is Maria Magdalena: this Mary cries for the lost of the one who, by means of compassion, sees his humanity in the human drama of the other. If so, the song is about the human seed fostered by the heart.

She could be, nevertheless, a third Mary: the one who cleaned Jesus feet with balm and wipped them with her hair. She cried of joy for the forgiveness of her sins. If so, the song is about hope.

Maybe they were the same woman...

I think, however, that weeping Mary is the sinner one. And only the sinner. The liberty will free the bodies of the slaves, like other bodies were liberated from the Pharaoh. Whereas the grace of God will embrace the faithful souls: no matter if they sinned. There's no reason to cry, there's hope, even if you feel like a feather in the air.

On Earth as it is in Heaven

Earth

"The first function of music, especially of folk music, is to produce a feeling of security for the listener, by voicing the particular quality of a land and the life of its people. To the traveler, a line from a familiar song may bring back all the familiar emotions of home, for music is a magical summing-up of the patterns of family, of love of conflict, and of work which gave a community its special feel and which shape the personalities of its members. Folk song calls the native back to his roots and prepares him emotionally to dance, worship, work, fight, or make love in ways normal to his place." Lomax, A., The Folk Songs of North America. In the English Language (p. xv)

Down in the valley, the valley so low

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow

Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;

Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.

Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,

Angels in Heaven know I love you,

Know I love you, dear, know I love you,

Angels in Heaven know I love you.

Heaven

"This was a psalter in whose margins was delineated a world reversed with respect to the one to which our senses have accustomed us.  As if at the border of a discourse that is by definition the discourse of truth, there proceeded, closely linked to it, through wondrous allusions in aenigmate, a discourse of falsehood on a topsy-turvy universe, in which dogs flee before the hare, and deer hunt the lion."

Eco, U., The Name of the Rose (p. 76)

"American dancing rhymes were cryptic and allusive, relying on wild, zany images to convey hidden erotic meaning. Here they were met more than half-way by the songs of the Negroes, which concealed beneath their surface innocence a world of irony and protest, and by the funny songs of the blackface minstrels, which were silly, but sometimes amusing parodies on the Negro jingles. All were rooted in an old Celtic type which turned the world upside down and inside out...

You should have seen the eel with his pipes, playing a broadside,
The lark with its nest in the gander's beard,
The water-hen crooning and playing the Jew's harp,
The church leaping and dancing all over the valley

"Americans have created many such darn-fool ditties out of non-sequiturs and splintered images - songs which, like surrealist paintings, mirror the swift turbulence of modern life. They recall that mythical bird, the Kansas jay-hawk 'that flies backwards because he doesn't care where he is going' bat wants to know where he's been. When you hear the old jay-hawk squawlin' you know that if something' ain't happened, it's goin' to.'" Lomax. op. cit. (p. xxiii)