How Can I Keep from Singing?

"How Can I Keep From Singing?" (also known by its incipit "My Life Flows On in Endless Song") is a Christian hymn with music written by American Baptist minister Robert Wadsworth Lowry. The song is frequently, though erroneously, cited as a traditional Quaker or Shaker hymn. The original composition has now entered into the public domain, and appears in several hymnals and song collections, both in its original form and with a revised text. Though it is not, in fact, a Quaker hymn, twentieth-century Quakers adopted it as their own and use it widely today.

Authorship and lyrics

Apparently the first publication of the words was on August 7, 1868, in The New York Observer. Titled "Always Rejoicing", and attributed to "Pauline T.",^[1][2] the text reads:

My life flows on in endless song;

Above earth's lamentation,

I hear the sweet, tho' far-off hymn

That hails a new creation;

Thro' all the tumult and the strife

I hear the music ringing;

It finds an echo in my soul—

How can I keep from singing?

What tho' my joys and comforts die?

The Lord my Saviour liveth;

What tho' the darkness gather round?

Songs in the night he giveth.

No storm can shake my inmost calm

While to that refuge clinging;

Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth,

How can I keep from singing?

I lift my eyes; the cloud grows thin;

I see the blue above it;

And day by day this pathway smooths,

Since first I learned to love it,

The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,

A fountain ever springing;

All things are mine since I am his—

How can I keep from singing?

"real" is also used here. These are the words as published by Robert Lowry in the 1869 song book, Bright Jewels for the Sunday School.^[3] Here Lowry claims credit for the music, but gives no indication as to who wrote the words. These words were also published in a British periodical in 1869, The Christian Pioneer,^[4] but no author is indicated. Lewis Hartsough, citing Bright Jewels as source of the lyrics and crediting Lowry for the tune, included "How Can I Keep from Singing?" in the 1872 edition of the Revivalist.^[5] Ira D. Sankey published his own setting of the words in Gospel Hymns, No. 3 (1878), writing that the words were anonymous.^[6] In 1888, Henry S. Burrage listed this hymn as one of those for which Lowry had written the music, but not the lyrics.^[7]

Doris Plenn learned the original hymn from her grandmother, who reportedly believed that it dated from the early days of the Quaker movement. Plenn contributed the following verse around 1950, which was taken up by Pete Seeger and other folk revivalists:^[2]

When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,

And hear their death-knell ringing,

When friends rejoice both far and near,

How can I keep from singing?

In prison cell and dungeon vile,

Our thoughts to them go winging;

When friends by shame are undefiled,

How can I keep from singing?

History

During the 20th century, this hymn was not widely used in congregational worship. Diehl's index to a large number of hymnals from 1900 to 1966 indicates that only one hymnal included it: the 1940 edition of The Church Hymnal of the Seventh-day Adventist Church (hymn no. 265).^[8] The United Methodist Church published it in its 2000 hymnal supplement, The Faith We Sing (hymn no. 2212), giving credit for the lyrics as well as the tune to Robert Lowry.^[9] The Faith We Sing version changes some of the lyrics and punctuation from the 1868 version.

Pete Seeger learned a version of this song from Doris Plenn, a family friend, who had it from her North Carolina family. His version made this song fairly well known in the folk revival of the 1960s. Seeger's version omits or modifies much of the Christian wording of the original, and adds Plenn's verse above. The reference in the added verse intended by Seeger and by Plenn—both active in left-wing causes—is to 'witch hunts' of the House Un-American Activities Committee (Seeger himself was sentenced to a year in jail in 1955 as a result of his testimony before the Committee, which he did not serve due to a technicality). Most folk singers, including Enya, have followed Seeger's version.

In the late 1970s and early 80s, How Can I Keep From Singing was recorded by Catholic Folk musician Ed Gutfreund (on an album called "From An Indirect Love"), and the music was published in a widely used Catholic Hymnal called "Glory and Praise", and was popular among Catholic liturgical music ministers, especially those who used guitar. In this, and in an 1993 recording by Marty Haugen, Jeanne Cotter, and David Haas, the quatrain beginning: "No storm can shake my inmost calm ..." is used as a repeated refrain.

It is also sung by Dahlia Malloy (Minnie Driver) in the episode 'Virgin Territory' from Season One of FX's The Riches.

In his radio singing debut, actor Martin Sheen performed this song (using the Plenn–Seeger lyrics) on A Prairie Home Companion in September 2007.^[10]

It has been used on the 2009 Christmas advertisement for the UK supermarket, Waitrose, in a performance by Camilla Kerslake.

Contemporary Christian artist Chris Tomlin clearly was inspired by the song when he wrote his song, "How Can I Keep from Singing" in 2006. Rich Mullins may also have drawn inspiration from this hymn when he recorded "How Can I Keep Myself from Singing?" in 1995 for the same album as his popular modern worship song "Awesome God". So, Pauline T's Christian poem is again regularly sung in churches as a worship song.

Use by Quakers

The song has often been attributed to "early" Quakers, but Quakers did not permit congregational singing in worship until after the American Civil War (and many still do not have music regularly). But learning it in social activist circles of the fifties and hearing Seeger's (erroneous) attribution endeared the song to many contemporary Quakers, who have adopted it as a sort of anthem. It was published in the Quaker songbook Songs of the Spirit,^[11] and the original words, with Plenn's verse, were included in the much more ambitious Quaker hymnal project, Worship in Song: A Friends Hymnal^[12] in 1996.

Enya version

"How Can I Keep From Singing?"
Single by Enya
from the album Shepherd Moons
B-side	'S Fágaim Mo Bhaile Oíche Chiúin (Silent Night)
Released	1991
Recorded	1990
Genre	New-age
Length	4:24
Label	Warner Music
Writer(s)	Robert Wadsworth Lowry
Producer(s)	Nicky Ryan
Enya singles chronology
"Caribbean Blue" (1991) "How Can I Keep from Singing?" (1991) "Book of Days" (1992)

The song received new prominence in 1991 when Irish musician Enya released a recording of the hymn on her album Shepherd Moons. Enya's version follows Pete Seeger's replacement of some more overtly Christian lines, for example: "What tho' my joys and comforts die? The Lord my Saviour liveth" became "What tho' the tempest 'round me roars, I hear the truth it liveth." The track was also released as a single in November of the same year, with Oíche Chiún and 'S Fagaim Mo Bhaile appearing as additional tracks.

The videoclip featured Enya singing in a church in the Gaoth Dobhair countryside, while also including archive footage of political figures such as Nelson Mandela or Boris Yeltsin among others, and references to the Gulf War and famine. The line about tyrants trembling showed Gennady Yanayev, leader of the 1991 August Coup, in a press conference with visibly trembling hands—apparently toward the end when the coup was unraveling.

Charts

Recordings

• Carol Pierson on Co-op Hootenanny (1965)^[13]
• Liz Getz on How Can I Keep from Singing? (1966)^[14]
• Ed Gutfreund on From an Indirect Love (1974)^[15]
• Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir, & Ed Trickett on Turning Toward the Morning (1975)^[16]
• John McCutcheon on How Can I Keep From Singing? (1975)^[17]
• Noel Paul Stookey on Band & Bodyworks (1979)^[18]
• Arlo Guthrie hosting Pete Seeger on Precious Friend (1982)^[19]
• John McCutcheon on Water from Another Time (1989)^[20]
• Enya on Shepherd Moons (1991)^[21]
• The St Philip's Boy's Choir on Angel Voices (1992)^[22]
• Grace Notes on Down Falls the Day (1993)^[23]
• BYU Singers on A Thanksgiving of American Folk Hymns (1994)^[24]
• Eva Cassidy on Eva by Heart (1998)^[25]
• Cordelia's Dad on Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger (1998)^[26]
• Laurel Massé on Feather and Bone (2000)^[27]
• SHeDAISY on Brand New Year (2000)^[28]
• Aled Jones on Aled (2002)^[29]
• Judy Collins on Portrait of an American Girl (2005)^[30]
• Bruce Springsteen on We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions (2006)^[31]
• Victoria Clark on Fifteen Seconds of Grace (2007)^[32]
• Libera on Eternal—The Best of Libera (2008)^[33]
• Faryl Smith on Faryl (2009)^[34]
• Camilla Kerslake on her eponymous debut album (2009)^[35]
• Laurie Lewis on Blossoms (2009)^[36]

References

External links

• Original words with MIDI version of tune
• Seeger's lyrics
• How Can I Keep From Singing - Is It A Shaker Hymn?
• Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics