The Gospel Train

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"The Gospel Train"
Music by	Traditional
Language	English
Form	Negro spiritual
Original artist	Fisk Jubilee Singers (Earliest attested)

"The Gospel Train" is a traditional Negro spiritual first published in 1872 as one of the songs of the Fisk Jubilee Singers.^[1] The first verse, including the chorus is as follows:

The gospel train is coming,

I hear it just at hand,

I hear the car wheels moving,

And rumbling thro' the land.

Get on board, children,

For there's room for many a more.

"The Gospel Train" is a standard Gospel song, and is found in the hymnals of many Protestant denominations. It has been recorded many times by many artists.

1 History
- 1.1 "Be in Time"
- 1.2 "The Warning"
2 References
3 Bibliography

[edit] History

The source for the melody and lyrics is unknown but developed out a tradition which resulted in a number of similar songs about a "Gospel Train". One of the earliest known is not from the United State, but from Scotland. In 1853, Scotsman John Lyon published a song in Liverpool titled "Be in Time", the last verse of which mentions that the Gospel train is at hand.^[2] In 1857, an editor for Knickerbocker magazine writes about visiting a "Colored Camp-Meeting" in New York where a song called "The Warning" was sang which featured an almost identical last verse.^[3] "The Warning" used the melody from and old dance song about Captain Kidd.

[edit] "Be in Time"

The last verse from "Be in Time" is:

Now the Gospel train's at hand, be in time, be in time:

Now the Gospel train's at hand, be in time;

Crowds at the station stand, with passport in their hand,

To start for Zion's land, be in time, be in time.

To start for Zion's land, &c.

[edit] "The Warning"

The last verse of "The Warning" is:

The Gospel train's at hand,

Be in time, be in time!

The Gospel train's at hand,

Be in time,

Behold your station there,

JESUS has paid your fare;

Let's all engage in prayer:

Be in time, be in time!

Let's all engage in prayer:

Be in time!

[edit] References

^ Pike, The Jubilee Singers, p. 190.
^ Lyon, The Harp of Zion, pp. 183-184: "Be in Time"
^ Editor, Nickerbocker, pp. 532-533: "... we accompanied a neighbor to a Colored Camp-Meeting, assembled in a shady grove on the 'Greenbush Road,' ... There were perhaps a thousand people present, men and women, young and old, at least one-half of whom were white persons. ... One colored brother ... was singing from a printed slip 'A Warning,' which all around him joined with great fervor."

[edit] Bibliography

Editors. The Knickerbocker, Vol. L November, 1857 No. 6., form The Knickerbocker: Or, New-York Monthly Magazine, Samuel Hueston, 1857.
Lyon, John. The Harp of Zion, A Collection of Poems &c. Liverpool: J. Sadler, 1853.
Pike, G.D. The Jubilee Singers and Their Campaign for Twenty Thousand Dollars, Lee And Shepard, Publishers, 1873.