“Were You There,” fully “Were You There When They Crucified My Lord,” is an African American spiritual. It took shape among enslaved people in the nineteenth century and was first printed in 1899; in 1940 it became the first spiritual included in a major American hymnal.
The song dwells, stanza by stanza, on the crucifixion — the cross, the nails, the pierced side, the tomb — and asks the listener, again and again, were you there. The question collapses the distance of time, placing the singer and the hearer at the foot of the cross.
Sung across denominations and traditions, the spiritual passed into bluegrass gospel.
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