Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Lore & Background

The song uses the theme of death to remind the audience of the glory that awaits in Heaven, when Christians believe they will transcend the earthly world of suffering and come to rest in their final home. Specifically, the text refers to the Old Testament account of the Prophet Elijah's ascent into Heaven by chariot. The stylistic elements and thematic content are highly typical to those of other spirituals. The song is characterized by its use of repetition as a key poetic element, powerful imagery, personal rhetoric, and potentially coded lyrics. "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was traditionally performed as a call-and-response tune. Its free-form structure intentionally allows for improvisation and spur-of-the-moment changes made to bring the performers and audience to a state of ecstasy and connection with the Holy Spirit. The melody is pentatonic.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights hum. The scoreboard reads 0-0, 89th minute, and the away end has gone quiet in that particular way that means they are no longer trying to intimidate but are simply waiting it out. In the home section, the noise has thinned. The tactical chants have spent themselves. A few drums still mark time, but the rhythm is loose, uncertain. Then someone — no one knows who, and it is always no one — starts it low. Just the first line, barely above the murmur of the crowd. 'Swing low…' A dozen voices catch it. Then a hundred. The melody is so old and so simple that it does not need to be learned; it only needs to be remembered, and everyone remembers. The section swells, the sound rolling up from the lower tier and pressing against the roof of the stand. Strangers lock eyes. A woman in a faded replica shirt sings with her eyes closed. A boy of nine, perched on his father's shoulders, sings every word because he has heard it a hundred times and still cannot get it wrong. The ball is dead. The goalkeeper is holding it. The referee is checking his watch. And for four minutes that will last a lifetime, the only thing that matters is the song, and the fact that forty thousand people are singing it together, and the faint, irrational, unkillable hope that the chariot is coming.

Reader's Guide

The song was composed by Wallace Willis and Minerva Willis, Choctaw Freedmen in the old Indian Territory in what is now Choctaw County, near the county seat of Hugo, Oklahoma, sometime after 1865. He may have been inspired by the sight of the Red River, by which he was toiling, which reminded him of the Jordan River and of the Prophet Elijah being taken to heaven by a chariot (2 Kings 2:11). Some sources claim that this song and "Steal Away" (also sung by Willis) had lyrics that referred to the Underground Railroad, the freedom movement that helped black people escape from Southern slavery to the North and Canada. Alexander Reid, a minister at the Old Spencer Academy, a Choctaw boarding school, heard Willis singing these two songs and transcribed the words and melodies. He sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Jubilee Singers popularized the songs during a tour of the United States and Europe. In 1939, Nazi Germany's Reich Music Examination Office added the song to a listing of "undesired and harmful" musical works. Nevertheless, by 1946 the Joe Biviano Accordion and Rhythm Sextette showcased the song for audiences of American jazz in a recording with two young emerging instrumentalists: Tony Mottola on guitar and John Serry on accordion. Their collaboration was subsequently incorporated into the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. The song enjoyed a resurgence during the 1960s Civil Rights struggle and the folk revival; it was performed by a number of artists. Perhaps the most famous performance during this period was that by Joan Baez during the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival. Oklahoma State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre from Tulsa proposed a bill nominating "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" as the Oklahoma State official gospel song in 2011. The bill was co-sponsored by the Oklahoma State Black Congressional Caucus. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed the bill into law on May 5, 2011, at a ceremony at the Oklahoma Cowboy Hall of Fame; making the song the official Oklahoma State Gospel Song.

Did You Know?

• The earliest known recording of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" was recorded in 1894 by the Standard Quartette.
• In 2002, the US Library of Congress inducted the Fisk Jubilee Singers' recording of the song into the National Recording Registry during its inaugural year.
• The song was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts.
• A mid-20th century recording of the song has been preserved within the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.