To celebrate All Saints Day, I thought I would share with you some variations on the song “When the Saints Go Marching In,” often referred to as simply “The Saints“.
The origins of this song are unclear. It apparently evolved in the early 1900s from a number of similarly titled gospel songs, including “When the Saints Are Marching In” (1896) and “When the Saints March In for Crowning” (1908). The first known recorded version was in 1923 by the Paramount Jubilee Singers. Although the title given on the label is “When All the Saints Come Marching In”, the group sings the modern lyrics beginning with “When the saints go marching in”. No author is shown on the label. Several other gospel versions were recorded in the 1920s, with slightly varying titles but using the same lyrics. The earliest versions were slow and stately, but as time passed, the recordings became more rhythmic, especially in the hands of Louis Armstrong who in 1939 transformed the spiritual into the timeless jazz tune of today.
As with many numbers with long traditional folk use, there is no one “official” version of the song or its lyrics. This extends so far as confusion as to its name, with it often being mistakenly called “When the Saints Come Marching In.” As for the lyrics themselves, their very simplicity makes it easy to generate new verses. Since the first and second lines of a verse are exactly the same, and the third and fourth are standard throughout, the creation of one suitable line in iambic tetrametre generates an entire verse.
The unofficial anthem of New Orleans, “When the Saints Go Marching In,” has come to characterise the city known as the birthplace of jazz. The song originated as a 19th century Protestant hymn and remains a message of revelation and redemption. Local musician Trombone Shorty explained the anthem as “just one of those things…connected with New Orleans…it’s just like Cafe du Monde…certain things are just a part of the fabric and the core of what we do here.” But requesting a “Saints” rendition could cost you. In New Orleans’ historic French Quarter, Preservation Hall charges twice as much for “Saints” requests.
BB King who grew up on a plantation in nearby Mississippi made it a regular part of his repertoire. His version owes a little more to Chicago than to New Orleans but remains faithful to the tradition. He particularly understands that this is a song thatdemands audience participation.
Bruce Springsteen takes us back to something like the slow and stately pace of the original gospel hymn. Here he is performing his version in New Orleans in 2006, just a few months after the devastation caused to the city by Hurricane Katrina. This song of redemption and hope could not have had more meaning than at that time.
