Stan’ Steady

“Stan’ Steady” is a spiritual arrangement for voice and piano by Eva Jessye. The song is the sixth arrangement included in Jessye’s book My Spirituals (1927). In the song’s preface, Jessye describes how she associates this song with the Switzler children—her childhood neighbors. The Switzler family moved into an old, dilapidated house that was rumored to be haunted, yet they decided to stay despite their neighbors warnings about their chosen residence. The Switzlers kept mostly to themselves, and Jessye soon learned that they were reclusive not because of an aversion to society, but because they were ashamed of their poverty. Jessye and a few other neighborhood children soon befriended the Swiztler children, who Jessye described as knowing “more clever songs, rounds, and ditties than we had ever heard before.” One of these songs—and the one that impressed Jessye the most—was “Stan’ Steady.”