A farmhand picking cotton hummed a secular song and thought of heaven: “I’ll Fly Away”
On a hot day in the cotton fields of Oklahoma, a young farmhand was humming an old song about a prisoner who dreamed of flying away. His mind turned to heaven. The result was “I’ll Fly Away”.
Albert E. Brumley wrote the song in 1929. It became one of the most recorded gospel songs of all time.
Brumley and the cotton field
Brumley grew up on a farm in Oklahoma. He loved music, attended singing schools and studied with gospel music publishers. He went on to write hundreds of gospel songs. According to Brumley’s own account, he was picking cotton and humming “The Prisoner’s Song”, a popular ballad with the line “If I had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls I would fly”. He began to think of the world as a prison and heaven as freedom, and the idea for the song came to him.
He finished it a few years later, and it was published in 1932.
The words and funerals
The song looks forward to the end of life as a release: “Some glad morning when this life is over, I’ll fly away.” It speaks of shadows and prison bars and of a home “on God’s celestial shore”. The chorus, “I’ll fly away, O glory”, is joyful and easy to sing. “I’ll Fly Away” became a favourite at funerals, where its hopeful tone comforts mourners, and at revivals and camp meetings. It is often sung with clapping and a lively rhythm.
Recordings and Africa
The song has been recorded by countless gospel, country and bluegrass artists. It gained new popularity through the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? in 2000, whose soundtrack included a version of it. In West African churches, the song is sung at funerals and thanksgiving services, sometimes with local rhythms and harmonies added. The song uses only a few chords and a simple melody, which makes it easy for congregations, guitarists and choirs to pick up quickly.
Other songs
Brumley also wrote “Turn Your Radio On”, among many others, and became one of the most important writers in southern gospel. A song about leaving the world behind was written by a man bent over in a cotton field in the heat. Perhaps that is why it sounds so sincere: he knew what he was hoping to fly away from.
