Music is Music: Farther Along

Several years ago, my wife, Nirmala, listened to a radio program about the musician Mississippi John Hurt.  The music impressed her; she informed me about it and we ordered the CD set “The Best of Mississippi John Hurt” immediately.  After listening to it, we were not, to put it mildly, disappointed. What wonderful guitar playing!  When I heard his rendition of “Father Along,” tears of joy rolled own my cheeks.  I played it since then many times, often accompanying him on the piano.  It’s a winsome melody.  I had never heard it before, and wondered if there were other arrangements.  There are many.  We will discuss three of them.

The religious song. “Farther Along,” dates back to 1911. The lyrics were written by a preacher who was travelling by train from Texas to the Indian territories.   When he showed them to a fellow traveler, the latter was very impressed.  This man, J.R. Baxter, bought the rights to the lyrics (for two dollars)  on the spot and had it set to music. It has since become a gospel standard. It has been covered by many musicians; I have listened to many of them, and have selected for discussion the three which impressed me the most.

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    1.  First Version by Ronnie Milsap

If you like this kind of thing, you should like this a lot, since Mr. Milsap gives a straightforward heart-felt rendition of the hymn.  He has a comely voice and sings with a pleasant Southern twang.  It is a version that most Christians, especially Southern evangelicals, would find appealing.  It appeals to me as well, but I certainly wouldn’t like to hear it repeatedly.  This recording is well within the parameters of conventional taste, but it is less commercial than many of the other “churchy” recordings I listened to, e.g. Brad Paisley’s.  I am unable to hear it the way I presume a white (sentimental?)  Southern Baptist would; it moves me somewhat and annoys me somewhat as well.  It is, however, the best traditional version of “Farther Along,” I could find.

The second version takes us farther along:

     2. Second Version by Willie Nelson

This Christian hymn smokes.  Willie Nelson’s version is Ronnie Milsap’s—on marijuana.  This pot-friendly rendition provides the listener with delightful inner tokes; the cannabization of a classic, as it were—just what the gospel needs. The medium is the message here. How three simple chords—along with a brief appearance of a dominant seventh; how the 1, 4. and 5 chords in the right combination can move us to tears is a mystery, the mystery of music.  Mr. Nelson is well acquainted with this mystery—and it shows.

Mr. Nelson, like John Hurt, isn’t concerned very much with the words; it’s the consolation in Willie’s and the joy in John Hurt’s version which is important.  Willie Nelson has an expressive voice; the emotion of this song comes across beautifully.  Unlike many white gospel singers, he is not a slave of the meter: for instance, he syncopates “we’ll understand it”; notice the several times he comes in after the beat, e.g., when he sings “living around us” at the beginning, and “live in the sunshine” later on in the song.  After this comes the loveliest part of the recording: Willie Nelson’s riffs on the guitar.  The second and third variations are especially effective.  This simple song can get boring if repeated without variation; Mr. Nelson sees to it that the listener’s ears remain listening attentively. A first-rate, virtuoso  recording; thank you, Willie Nelson!

Before we proceed to Mississippi John Hurt's recording, I would like to say a few words about the lyrics.  Wikipedia informs me that the preacher, Rev. A.R. Fletcher, wrote the text, as previously mentioned,  on a train on his way to Indian Territories—presumably to convert Native Americans, alas!  He was upset and saddened by the fact that he wouldn’t be able to be present when his wife gave birth.  Perhaps this, at least partially, explain the bitterness and mean-spiritedness of some of the words. 

There are six stanzas, along with the refrain repeated after each stanza,, in the original.  Nobody sings all of them; it would be difficult not to be boring if a singer chose to sing all six. Every singer, however uses the refrain:

Farther along we’ll know all about it

Farther along, we’ll understand why

Cheer up, my bother, live in the sunshine

We’ll understand it all by and by.

The two bitter, or at least less joyful stanzas, are as follows:

Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder

Why it should be all the day long

While there are others living about us

Never molested though in the wrong…

When death has come and taken our loved ones

It leaves our lives so lonely and drear

And then we do wonder why others prosper

Living so wicked year after year—

These self-righteous stanzas smack of spiritual pride.  It doesn’t seem that the lyricist has tried to walk a mile in a “wicked” person'd moccasins.  The case that this song pits the righteous and poor against the wicked and rich falls apart when one realizes that there is a recording of “Farther Along” by the notorious Jimmy Swaggart.  Do some of the devout who listen or sing this song think of gays and women who have had an abortion as “living so wicked year after year”?  I will leave it up to you, dear reader, to answer as you see fit.

Milsap begins the song with the “Tempted and tried” first stanza which just about all the other singers of this hymn do.  Other than the refrain, he chooses this verse:

“Faithful till death,” saith our loving Master;

Short is our time to labor and wait,

Then will our toiling seem to be nothing,

When we shall pass the beautiful gate

Not a bad choice.  Willie Nelson begins with the “Tempted and tried” verse, but he doesn’t seem to believe it.  Other than the refrain, he chooses one more verse:

When we see Jesus coming in glory

When he comes down from his home in the sky

Then we shall meet him in that bright mansion

We’ll understand it, all by and by.

Not a bad choice as well; no self-righteousness here. Now we can proceed to Mississippi John Hurt’s version:

3.  Third Version by Mississippi John Hurt

Heavenly!  This is the recording that brought tears of joy to my eyes the first time I heard it. Hurt’s style has been described as  “fast and slightly syncopated”.  The tempo here is by far the fastest of the three recordings, which, for me, adds to its upbeat quality.  The “slight syncopation” is present as well, but less so than in his other recordings.  This is a simple, albeit moving tune; this is why Hurt plays for the most part chords and melody.  His finger-picking is stellar and unique; it has influenced many musicians.

The music is always the most important factor, yet the words he chose to sing give a good indication of Hurt’s personality as well. His version is the only one I know that dispenses with the “Tempted and tried” first stanza altogether—he begins with the joyful chorus.  He then chooses two other stanzas, the “Faithful till death” stanza that Milsap chose, and the “When we see Jesus” stanza chosen by Willie Nelson. Hurt apparently wanted nothing to do with words that add even a hint of "sour grapes". 

Some background here: Hurt, born in 1892, made a few recordings in the 1920s, which were critically acclaimed, but were commercial failures.  When the Depression came, he had no more opportunities to reach a wide audience, and returned to Avalon, his home town in rural Mississippi, where he worked as a sharecropper.  He completely disappeared from the public's eye and ear.  In the early 1960s, a musicologist named Tom Hoskins, impressed by Hurt’s recordings, wondered whether Hurt was still alive.  One of Hurt’s original songs is dedicated to his hometown, Avalon.  Mr. Hoskins pored over the map of Mississippi and eventually discovered where the little hamlet was located.  Along with some friends, he traveled to Mississippi and was delighted to discover that John Hurt, now in this 70s, was still alive.  Having been informed where his simple dwelling was located, Hoskins and his friends set off to find him.  As Hurt noticed a bunch of white men approaching, he thought it was a lynch mob! Needless to say, Hoskins was delighted that Hurt’s ability had remained intact.

Hurt obviously had things to be bitter about, but that was not in his nature.  Kindness and joy are much in evidence in this recording, aspects no doubt of Hurt’s personality as well.  He had little time left.  Brought into the limelight in 1963, Hurt died of a heart attack in 1966.   The recording under discussion was therefore that of a man in his seventies, whose personality was still as fresh and irrepressible as ever.

Even when he botches the lyrics, it only adds to the charm.  (Listen to how he flubs the first line of the "Faithful till death", stanza, for instance.  (His attention is on his playing, but his singing is infectious as well).

This simple, beautiful song runs the danger of becoming an “ear worm” when heard too frequently, so I’m going to take a break and listen to other artists.  But I will return to “Farther Along” both at the piano and at my Bose CD player.  Which recording of this song will I return to most often? 

Thank you, Mississippi John Hurt.  You have cheered me up at times when I badly needed it; at times when I didn’t, you intensified my joy. Thank you, again and again.


Previous editions of this series, all available on my blog:

1.  Music is Music: Feeling Good
2.  Music of Transformation: An Analysis of a Spiritual
3.  Schubert in Five Songs Part l
4.  Schubert in Five Songs, Part ll
5.  Music is Music: Gospel
6.  Music is Music: der Schmied
7.  Music is Music: Throw it Away
8.  Prometheus
9. Music is Music: Beautiful Hurts