i was standing by the window
May 26, 2006 6:10 PM 
Subscribe
Made most popular to many Americans as the closing song for the Grand Ole Opry programs, Will The Circle Be Unbroken was written in 1907 by Ada Habershon, an intensely religious young woman and acquaintance of
Dwight Moody and
Ira David Sankey. The music was "composed" by
Charles Gabriel, a popular songwriter and composer of the era who is often solely credited with the song, but while he may have put the notes down on paper, the tune itself already existed as the African-American spiritual Glory Glory / Since I Laid My Burden Down. [lots more inside]
posted by luriete (18 comments total)
31 users marked this as a favorite
« Older
Toddlerpedes...
| Justin's Rattlesnake Bite...
Newer »
There are loved ones in the glory/ Whose dear forms you often miss:
When you close your earthly story/ Will you join them in their bliss?
Will the circle be unbroken / By and by, by and by?
In a better home awaiting / In the sky, in the sky?
In the joyous days of childhood / Oft they told of wondrous love,
Pointed to the dying Savior / Now they dwell with Him above.
You can picture happy gath'rings / Round the fireside long ago.
And you think of tearful partings / When they left you here below:
One by one heir seats were emptied / One by one they went away;
Here the circle has been broken / Will it be complete one day?
However, by 1935, when the Carter family wrote their version (A. P., who
wrote most of their songs, refused to call himself the new song's author,
insisting instead that he had simply "fixed them up"), it had already become
a bit more secular. Certainly this transition was a natural one, as Johnny
Cash and many other artists who preceded him have shown us; the tune remains
the same, but the lyrics will often change, over several generations,
sometimes quite substantially:
I was standing by the window / On a cold and cloudy day
When I saw the hearse come rolling / To carry my mother away
Will the circle be unbroken / By and by, Lord, by and by
There's a better home a waiting / In the sky Lord in the sky
I said to the undertaker / Undertaker please drive slow
For that body you are carrying / Lord I hate to see her go
Well I followed close behind her / Tried to hold up and be brave
But I could not hide my sorrow / When they laid her in that grave
I went back home Lord that home was lonesome / Since my mother, she was gone
All my brothers and sisters crying / What a home so sad and alone
In 1972, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band recorded their own version with Mother Maybelle Carter - on an album that featured songs played with a group of musicians that included some of Nashville's greatest stars, people like Carter, Roy Acuff, Earl Scruggs and Vassar Clements. Many of us on the American left have come of age (or, in the case of the children of the baby boomers and their children, may have grown up) with the revival of American folk music, from Woody Guthrie and later Pete Seeger, through the early 1970s and the first formal and credited mergings of mainstream country and western with rock and roll; this particular album became one of the first widely-recognized bridges between the popular protest music of the left and the more conservative and religious folk, bluegrass and country musicians of the mid-south.
A new verse was added, recognizing the place of these young musicians' forebears in the music that would grow into contemporary rock and roll:
We sang the songs of childhood / Hymns of faith that made us strong
Ones that Mother Maybelle taught us / Hear the angels sing along
The lyrics have been appropriated by various historical movements and for various reasons. The Civil Rights Movement, most notably, took this song and many other spirituals of the era and used them as a rallying cry of unity and devotion - not necessarily spiritual devotion, but devotion to the causes of equality and social justice. The song's working-class roots helped strengthen the resolve of young people of all social classes who came together in the south to resist a sometimes-violent white establishment.
This song has been recorded by dozens of popular artists since 1950, including John Lee Hooker, Willie Nelson, George Jones, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, the Neville Brothers, Jack Elliott, and many more; who knows how many hundreds of artists performed it as part of their repertoire in the first half of the last century.
I've compiled a few recordings; here are the 13th Floor Elevators, George Jones, June Carter Cash, Marty Robbins, Ralph Stanley, and The Statler Brothers all performing various versions Will The Circle Be Unbroken.
posted by luriete at 6:10 PM on May 26, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]