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"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen" is an African-American spiritual song that originated during the period of slavery but was not published until 1867. The song is well known and many cover versions of it have been recorded by artists such as Marian Anderson, Lena Horne, Louis Armstrong, Harry James, Paul Robeson, and Sam Cooke among others.^[1]

Traditional lyrics

Nobody knows the trouble I've been seen^{[citation needed]}
Nobody knows my sorrow
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Glory hallelujah!

Sometimes I'm up, sometimes I'm down
Oh, yes, Lord
Sometimes I'm almost to the ground
Oh, yes, Lord

Although you see me going 'long so
Oh, yes, Lord
I have my trials here below
Oh, yes, Lord

Nobody knows the trouble I've been through
Nobody knows but Jesus
Nobody knows the trouble I've seen
Glory hallelujah!

If you get there before I do
Oh, yes, Lord
Tell all-a my friends I'm coming to Heaven!
Oh, yes, Lord

Variations

The song appeared as "Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Had" in 1867 in Slave Songs of the United States with additional verses.^[2]^[3] Arranger Hugo Frey used this version in his 1924 collection Famous Negro Spirituals published by Robbins Music.^[4]
The Jubilee Singers sang a song with a similar chorus but with different tune and lyrics, entitled "Nobody Knows the Trouble I See," first published in 1872.
The second line ("Nobody knows my sorrow") is changed in some renditions to be "Nobody knows but Jesus";^[5] found most often in American church hymnals.

Classical variations and recordings

In the late 19th century African-American music began to appear in classical music art forms, in arrangements made by Black composers such as Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Henry Thacker Burleigh and J. Rosamond Johnson. Johnson made an arrangement of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I See" for voice and piano in 1917, when he was directing the New York Music School Settlement for Colored People.^[6]

The song was released on the extended play Negro Spirituals Vol. 1 (HMV 7EGN 27), and the song was arranged by Harry Douglas.

American contralto Marian Anderson had her first successful recording with a version of the song on the Victor label in 1925.^[7]

Singer Lena Horne recorded a version of the song in 1946.^[8]

Florence Price incorporates “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” in her Mississippi River Suite of 1934. The second section especially quotes directly from the spiritual; and it dominates the texture of the fourth section.^[9]

American violinist Maud Powell was the first white solo concert artist to perform classical arrangements of spirituals in concerts, and that is where she also interpreted classical and contemporary pieces by composers like Dvorak and Sibelius. After Powell's suggestion, J. R. Johnson made an arrangement of "Nobody Knows the Trouble I See" for piano and violin in 1919. Powell got to play this in a fall program she organized, and then she died that November.^[6] Recent interpretations of the classical version of this spiritual have been made by a Chicago violinist, Rachel Barton Pine, who has been working along the lines of Powell's legacy.^[10]

The Deep River Boys recorded their version in Oslo on August 29, 1958.

Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).

Dr. John covered the song on his album Ske-Dat-De-Dat: The Spirit of Satch (2014).

In popular culture

This song is sung by Dick Foran and Peggy Ryan in Private Buckaroo 1942, war musical.

The song is one of the five spirituals included in the oratorio A Child of Our Time, first performed in 1944, by the classical composer Michael Tippett.
The song is sung by an offscreen chorus in the 1944 race film Go Down, Death!.
An African American soldier during the second episode of Roberto Rossellini's Paisan (1946) sings this song to a little Italian boy.
In the movie Young Man with a Horn (1950), the song is played at the memorial service for the character Art Hazzard.
In his Jazz album of 1978, Ry Cooder added the couplet "Nobody knows the trouble I see, Nobody knows but me" based on the song, as an opening to his version of Nobody, originally composed and sung by Bert Williams.
A 1988 issue of Boys Life had a comic strip about a Boy Scout called Pee Wee Harris. In it, the Scouts are doing a community project for Eagle Scout in which they are cleaning up an old jailhouse in order for it to be converted into a museum. The title character, Pee Wee Harris, thanks the other Scouts for their hard work and says he can finish up. However, as he is about to quit one of the cells shuts on him. The final panel shows nighttime on the old jailhouse, and "Nobody knows the trouble I've seen" being sung from one window.
In the Wee Sing video "Wee Sing in the Big Rock Candy Mountains" (1991), the song is sung by Little Bunny Foo Foo to express his sorrow after he is turned into a goon by the Good Fairy for repeatedly bopping the Meecy Mice. He sings a verse of the song again in "Wee Singdom: The Land of Music and Fun " (1996) when he temporarily forgets the next part of his performance song "Going on a Bunny Hunt".
In the episode of The Muppet Show featuring John Denver, Denver responds to some mushroom-shaped Muppets by singing "Nobody knows the truffles I've seen!"
Rich Hall's BBC Four documentary Rich Hall's the Dirty South (2010) features the song sung by The Dixie Hummingbirds.
A rendition of the song by Pastor T.L. Barrett & the Youth For Christ Choir is played at the end of episode two of Boiling Point.^[11]