“Victory Shall Be Mine”

Description

"Victory, victory shall be mine (x2); Just hold your peace and the Lord will fight your battles, Victory, victory shall be mine." "Victory, victory shall be mine in the morning..."

Supplemental text

Victory Shall Be Mine
  Partial text(s)

          *** A ***

Wictory Shall Be Mine

From Anne Warner, Traditional American Folk Songs from the Anne &
Frank Warner Collection, #176, p. 394. From "Annie" of Elizabeth
City, North Carolina. Collected 1937.

Wictory, wictory shall be mine,
Wictory, wictory shall be mine,
Just hold your peace,
And the Lord will fight your battles,
Wictory, wictory shall be mine!

(1 additional stanza, with indications of possible variants used by others)

Notes

Yes, the Warners' informant (name uncertain) pronounced it "wictory" -- a peculiar error for an American, as it is considered characteristic of Cockney speech (and even in that dialect, some insist that its frequency is exaggerated).

The tune has another, even more surprising, peculiarity: It uses quarter tones. And not just any quarter tone; it has a quarter tone in place of the fifth (i.e. Ab# instead of G in the key of C). - RBW

References

1. Warner 176, "Wictory Shall Be Mine" (1 text, 1 tune)
2. ST Wa176 (Partial)
3. Roud #16403
4. BI, Wa176