​Description
July 1964 was a significant period in the history of racial conflict in the USA, for better and for worse. On the one hand, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts on July 2, which effectively outlawed discrimination on the grounds of race, religion, sex or nationality. On the other hand, race riots broke out in Harlem, New York between 16 and 22 July, and in Rochester, New York on 24 July.

A year earlier, Martin Luther King Jr (1929–68) delivered his famous ‘I have a dream’ speech on the occasion of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom protest, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. on 28 August 1963, (less than a year before Scourby recorded The Talking Bible). A quotation from that speech forms the basis of the composition’s lyric. Among the rhetorical devices that King deployed extensively in his political discourse is biblical quotation. On this occasion he drew from the books of Amos, Isaiah, and the Psalms, and the letter to the Galatians. Prophecies, promises, and principles from biblical times are adapted as similes, metaphors, and allusions to describe the sufferings of Afro-American people in his own.

The lyric is constructed from sentences, phrases, and words ­ extracted from the Scourby recording, corresponding to those spoken by King. The process, effectively, transforms the King’ speech into a collagic biblical text. The intonation, stresses, and rhythm of the recorded elements, caused by the process of dislocation and reconfiguration, sound haphazard but decidely musical.

The composition is divided into two parts. The first, comprises a four-sentence phrase derived, for the most part, from Isaiah Chapter 40 and verse 4: ‘I have a dream. I have a dream that one day every valley will be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together’. The collage is slowed down by a factor of 20.05x to create a languorous, pained, and dispiriting cry. The militant, defiant, and relentless rhythmic accompaniment provides a counterpoise.

In the second part, the voice of yearning continues in a background, while the rhythmic accompaniment assumes a stationary loop, heard in the middle ground of the acoustic field. The four-sentence phrase is positioned in the foreground. It is, thereafter, repeated three times, left of field. Each time it is dovetailed with one the remaining sentences from the source text, right of field. The first repeat: ‘Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. Free at last. Great God almighty. We are free’. The second repeat: ‘No, no. We are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice runs down like waters and righteous like a mighty stream’ (derived from Amos Chapter 5, verse 24). And, the third repeat: ‘Let us not wallow in the valley of despair … the mountain of despair a stone of hope’.

Lyric
I have a dream
I have a dream
that one day
every valley
shall be exalted
and every mountain and hill
shall be made low
and the crooked
shall be made straight
and the rough places plain
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it
together

I have a dream
Let us not seek
I have a dream
to satisfy
that one day
our thirst
every valley
for freedom
shall be exalted
by drinking
and every mountain and hill
from the cup of
shall be made low
bitterness
and the crooked
and hatred
shall be made straight
Free at last
and the rough places plain
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
Great God almighty
and all flesh shall see it
We are free
together

I have a dream
No
I have a dream
no
that one day
we are not
every valley
satisfied
shall be exalted
and we will not
and every mountain and hill
until judgement
shall be made low
run down as
and the crooked
waters
shall be made straight
and righteousness
and the rough places
as a mighty
plain
stream
and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed
and all flesh shall see it
together

I have a dream
Let us not
I have a dream
wallow
that one day
in the
every
valley
valley
of
shall be exalted
despair
the
and every
mountain
mountain
and hill
shall be made
low
of
and the crooked
despair
shall be made straight
a stone
and the rough
of hope
places plain

and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed ...
and all flesh shall see it ...
together.



Source Text
I have a dream … I have a dream that one day every valley will be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low. The rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together … Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred … No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream … Let us not wallow in the valley of despair … the mountain of despair a stone of hope … Free at last, Free at last, Great God almighty, we are free at last.

Biblical Reference
Genesis 1.26; 2.5; 2.12; 3.2; 8.9; 9.18; 19.2; 20.9; 26.17; 31.48; 31.49; 37.9, Exodus 3.1; 14.12; 17.3; 21.2, Leviticus 19.20, Psalm 78.65, Proverbs 6.30; 10.12; 14.10, Ecclesiastes 2.20, Isaiah 40.4-5; 51.17, Jeremiah 6.26, Hosea 2.15, Amos 5.24, Matthew 11.18, John 6.39; 7.25, 2 Peter 3.8, Revelation 11.17.

Source Reference
Martin Luther King Jr, 'I Have a Dream ... ', Washington, Government Archives, 1963.