Josephine Cameron: Music

• MP3 short clip, hi-fi play (broadband)
• MP3 short clip, lo-fi play (modem)

“I’m just a poor, wayfaring stranger, a traveling through this world of woe. But there’s no sickness, toil, nor danger in that bright land to which I go.” This song was an obvious choice for the first track of American Songs, since it pretty much encompasses everything that this album is about. Almost every song I came across in my research expressed some of this longing, this restlessness, this homesickness. There is a simultaneous comfort and despair in this tune that sums up so much of the American experience—that constant, unfailing search for the brighter day, the better life, the finer land. The song was made popular by Burl Ives, one of my family’s all-time favorite movie star-singers. And he liked it so much, and felt that it was such an honest rendering of the human condition that he even professionally billed himself as “The Wayfaring Stranger.”

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger
A-traveling through this world of woe
But there’s no sickness, no toil nor danger
In that bright world to which I go

I’m going there to see my father
I’m going there no more to roam
I’m just a-going over Jordan
I’m just a-going over home

I know dark days will gather round me
I know my way is rough and steep
But beauteous fields lie just beyond me
Where souls redeemed their vigil keep

I’m going there to meet my mother
She said she’d meet me when I come
I’m just a-going over Jordan
I’m just a-going over home

I want to wear a crown of glory
When I get home to that bright land
I want to shout salvation’s story
In concert with that bloodwashed band

I’m going there to see my father
I’m going there no more to roam
I’m just a-going over Jordan
I’m just a-going over home