Good Night, The Lord's Coming

Subject: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 06:01 PM

This YouTube video reflects the power of a gospel song I think probably started as a spiritual. If it did, it's survived a long time!

I know the first time I heard it, it was a very early black gospel quartet doing it. As I heard it then, it was the same style you can hear at the LOC's recordings of songs the singers said then that they had learned as spirituals from slave forebears.

http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=I0K56fu5IR0&feature=related

The words are a tad murky. Amazon also has a black gospel MP3 of the song.

Anyone wanna take a shot?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Jul 10 - 06:35 PM

The Pilgrim Jubilee Singers did a version: http://www.tescoentertainment.com/store/mp3/the-pilgrim-jubilee-singers--goodnight-the-lords-coming/2%3A5427109/
Spirituals were sometimes kn own as "jubilees.)

Another video version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZqw_Zhu8zE

========================

The verse order varies by version.... Here's one version of lyrics I found, corrected for the call/response pattern I heard:

1. Well, goodnight, the Lord's coming
Goodnight, the Lord's coming
Goodnight, the Lord's coming
Refrain: Knocking at the door, (the) door flew open
And the love come(s) streaming down down
Down, Lord, down


2. Well, they robed him in a-white linen

3. Well, Joseph bared (beared?) (bathed?) (begged!) his body

4. Well, they found him in a-Gethsemane

5. Well they buried him in (a-God's/that city???) (not in a gas station, LOL!)

To follow Scripture, the verse order would be: they FOUND him, Joseph of Arimathea BEGGED (for) him (his corpse), ROBED him (in the shroud), BURIED him, and then more verses would probably have followed about the Resurrection. The "door" of course would be the stone an angel rolled away. (The love that streamed out WAS the resurrection.)

~Susan

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: open mike
Date: 15 Jul 10 - 02:52 AM

I don't know the song, but a place where I often play has a bumper sticker on the wall that says "Jesus is coming, look busy."

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 20 - 06:58 PM

From the version the Nashville Bluegrass Band has done:

Well, goodnight, the Lord's coming
Goodnight, the Lord's coming
Goodnight, the Lord's coming
Refrain: Knocking at the door, (the) door flew open
And the love come streaming down down
Down, Lord, down

--Well, Joseph buried his body

--Well, they robed him in a-white linen

--Well, they found him in a-Gethsemane

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 20 - 01:36 PM

First I heard of this hymn was a live video of an onstage performance
with all three "Judds" --
Naomi, Wynonna, and Ashley --
singing this as an a-cappella trio, as they would have done in church.

I'll see if I can find that Judd video. Now,
the video referenced in the OP is at

this YouTube link.

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 20 - 01:58 PM

I didn't make that up, honest!
That video was played when
Larry King had Naomi Judd on his talk show;
she was promoting a book she had just published
(by then Naomi had retired from performing).

The rare and wonderful thing about the occasion of the performance,
was that Ashley Judd rarely sings at all,
and especially rarely in public with Naomi and Wynonna,
but for a benefit or something, the three of them did it.
So Larry King played the video on his talk show.
But can I find it now?   nooooooooo.


However, here are some remarks from the album notes
by the Nashville Bluegrass Band.
You can read them on the notes for the album 'To Be His Child.'

Or I will copy out the few sentences,
and put them here:
"Goodnight, the Lord's Coming" was discovered by fiddler James Bryan on a very rare '78 Vocalion record by an obscure group called the Pilgrim Jubilee Singers, who had recorded it back in 1927 in New York. They did the song unaccompanied, as does the Nashville Bluegrass Band here.

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 20 - 02:00 PM

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: keberoxu
Date: 12 Jan 20 - 02:51 PM

This is that 1927 recording, as near as I can make out,
by the Pilgrim Jubilee Singers.

Goodnight, The Lord's Coming

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 11:02 PM

I think Jerusalem Ridge had Joseph < carry > his body

Subject: RE: Good Night, The Lord's Coming
From: GUEST,Guest again
Date: 14 Jan 20 - 11:06 PM

And “love come a-tumblin down, …”
Variants, eh?