"The Wayfaring Stranger" (aka "Poor Wayfaring Stranger" or "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger"), Roud

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 3339, is a well-known American spiritual/folk song likely originating in the early 19th century about a plaintive soul on the journey through life. It became one of Burl Ives

Burl Ives

Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....

's signature songs, included on his 1944 album The Wayfaring Stranger

The Wayfaring Stranger (1944 Asch album)

The Wayfaring Stranger is an album consisting of three 10-inch records by Burl Ives. It was released in 1944, but it should not be confused with Ives' The Wayfaring Stranger , which was also released in 1944 but contains different songs...

. Ives used it as the title of his early 1940s CBS radio show and his 1948 autobiography. He became known as "The Wayfaring Stranger."

The New Christy Minstrels recorded their song: The Ballad of Julie Ann to this tune.

Use in classical music

Ernő Dohnányi

Erno Dohnányi

Ernő Dohnányi was a Hungarian conductor, composer, and pianist. He used the German form of his name Ernst von Dohnányi for most of his published compositions....

 used the tune (along with two other traditional American folktunes) in his final composition American Rhapsody (1953).

Lyrics

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

I'm Traveling through, this world of woe

Yet There's no sickness, toil nor danger

In that bright land, to which I go

I'm going there to see my mother/father

I'm going there no more to roam

I'm only going over Jordan

I'm only going over home



I know dark clouds will gather 'round me

I know my way is rough and steep

Yet golden fields lie just before me

Where God's redeemed, shall ever sleep

I'm going there to see my father/mother

She said he'd/she'd meet me when I come

I'm only going over Jordan

I'm only going over home



I want to wear a crown of Glory

When I get home to that good land

I want to shout Salvation's story

In concert with the Blood-Washed Band


I'm going there to meet my Saviour

To sing his praise forever more

I'm just a going over Jordan

I'm just a going over home

Notable recordings

• 16 Horsepower
  16 Horsepower
  16 Horsepower was an American alternative country music group based in Denver, Colorado. Their music often invoked religious imagery dealing with conflict, redemption, punishment, and guilt through David Eugene Edwards's lyrics and the heavy use of traditional bluegrass, gospel, and Appalachian...
  
  
• Alison Krauss
  Alison Krauss
  Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...
  
  
• Andreas Scholl
  Andreas Scholl
  Andreas Scholl is a German countertenor, a male classical singer in the alto vocal range. He is noted as a specialist in Baroque music.-Childhood:...
  
  
• Annah Graefe
• Blanche
  Blanche (band)
  Blanche is an American alternative country band from Detroit, Michigan. Their music is based in Americana, early country, and folk blues, with a touch of haunting Southern Gothic stylings and garage rock mentality. Blanche is known for wearing vintage fashion of the early to mid-20th century.The...
  
  
• Bill Monroe
  Bill Monroe
  William Smith Monroe was an American musician who created the style of music known as bluegrass, which takes its name from his band, the "Blue Grass Boys," named for Monroe's home state of Kentucky. Monroe's performing career spanned 60 years as a singer, instrumentalist, composer and bandleader...
  
  
• Blackberry Wood
  Blackberry Wood
  Blackberry Wood is a musical group based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. It consists of guitar, vocals, stand-up bass, drum-kit, percussion, and horn section. Depending on the event and their line-up, they will also perform with accordion and fiddle....
  
  
• Bob Gibson
  Bob Gibson (musician)
  Samuel Robert Gibson was a folk singer who led a folk music revival in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He was known for playing both the banjo and the 12-string guitar. He introduced a then largely unknown Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival of 1959. He produced a number of LPs in the decade...
  
   and Bob Camp
  Hamilton Camp
  Hamilton Camp was an English-American singer, songwriter, actor and voice actor.-Early life:Camp was born in London, England, and was evacuated during World War II to the United States as a child with his mother and sister. He became a child actor in films and onstage...
  
  
• Burl Ives
  Burl Ives
  Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives was an American actor, writer and folk music singer. As an actor, Ives's work included comedies, dramas, and voice work in theater, television, and motion pictures. Music critic John Rockwell said, "Ives's voice .....
  
  
• Charlie Haden
  Charlie Haden
  Charles Edward Haden is an American jazz musician. He is a double bassist, probably best known for his long association with saxophonist Ornette Coleman...
  
   (his own voice, on The Art of Song)
• Chris Thomas King
  Chris Thomas King
  Chris Thomas King is an American New Orleans, Louisiana-based blues musician and actor.-History:King was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. He is the son of blues musician Tabby Thomas. He has won awards including "Album of the Year" for both Grammy Award and Country Music Awards. King...
  
   on his album "Antebellum Postcards."
• Chasing June (2011 LP, "Under the Slate Grey Sky")
• David Eugene Edwards
  David Eugene Edwards
  David Eugene Edwards is an American musician.He is the lead singer of Wovenhand, and also the main songwriter and the principal musician on the recordings of the band. He is the former lead singer of 16 Horsepower...
  
  
• Dolly Parton
  Dolly Parton
  Dolly Rebecca Parton is an American singer-songwriter, author, multi-instrumentalist, actress and philanthropist, best known for her work in country music. Dolly Parton has appeared in movies like 9 to 5, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Steel Magnolias and Straight Talk...
  
  
• Duane Eddy
  Duane Eddy
  Duane Eddy is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he had a string of hit records, produced by Lee Hazlewood, which were noted for their characteristically "twangy" sound, including "Rebel Rouser", "Peter Gunn", and "Because They're Young"...
  
  
• Dusty Springfield
  Dusty Springfield
  Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'BrienSources use both Isabel and Isobel as the spelling of her second name. OBE , known professionally as Dusty Springfield and dubbed The White Queen of Soul, was a British pop singer whose career extended from the late 1950s to the 1990s...
  
   (on the 2007 DVD Live at the BBC)
• Ed Sheeran
  Ed Sheeran
  Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran is an English singer-songwriter who is currently signed to Asylum / Atlantic Records. Sheeran broke through commercially in June 2011, when his debut single "The A Team" debuted at number 3 on the UK chart.-Early life:Sheeran was born in Halifax, West Yorkshire to...
  
   (on the 2010 DVD Live at the Bedford and again on the "One Take EP")
• Ego Likeness
  Ego Likeness
  Ego Likeness are an American darkwave/industrial rock band from Baltimore, Maryland. They were formed in 1999 by artist Steven Archer and writer Donna Lynch.-Early Work:...
  
  
• Eliza Carthy
  Eliza Carthy
  Eliza Carthy is an English folk musician known for both singing and playing fiddle. She is the daughter of English folk musicians singer/guitarist Martin Carthy and singer Norma Waterson.-Life and career:...
  
   and Norma Waterson
  Norma Waterson
  Norma Christine Waterson is an English musician, best known as one of the original members of The Watersons, a premier English traditional group. Other members of the group included her brother Mike Waterson and sister Lal Waterson, and in later incarnations of the group her husband Martin...
  
  
• Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris
  Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...
  
   (released as a single from her album Roses in the Snow
  Roses in the Snow
  Roses in the Snow was a 1980 album by Emmylou Harris. While Harris' previous release, 1979's Blue Kentucky Girl featured traditional, straight-ahead country , Roses in the Snow found Harris performing Bluegrass-inspired music, with material by Flatt and Scruggs, Paul Simon, The Carter Family, and...
  
  , her version peaked at #7 on the U.S. country charts in 1980)
• Eric Bibb
  Eric Bibb
  Eric Bibb is an American acoustic blues singer-songwriter. He is based in London and launched his career in Europe. Today he lives in Finland.-Biography:...
  
  
• Esther Ofarim
• Eva Cassidy
  Eva Cassidy
  Eva Marie Cassidy was an American vocalist known for her interpretations of jazz, blues, folk, gospel, country and pop classics. In 1992 she released her first album, The Other Side, a set of duets with go-go musician Chuck Brown, followed by a live solo album, Live at Blues Alley in 1996...
  
  
• Frankie Laine
  Frankie Laine
  Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio , was a successful American singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005...
  
  
• Gary Morris
  Gary Morris
  Gary Gwyn Morris is an American country music artist who charted a string of countrypolitan-styled hit songs throughout the 1980s....
  
  
• Giant Sand
  Giant Sand
  Giant Sand is an American rock band, based in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The name is shortened from the original Giant Sandworms, a reference to the creatures in the Dune books. Overseen by singer-songwriter Howe Gelb, its membership has shifted over the years—at times with each album...
  
  
• Glenn Yarborough and The Limeliters
  The Limeliters
  The Limeliters are an American folk music group, formed in July 1959 by Lou Gottlieb , Alex Hassilev , and Glenn Yarbrough .  The group was active from 1959 until 1965, when they disbanded.  After a hiatus of sixteen years Yarbrough, Hassilev, and Gottlieb reunited and began performing as...
  
  
• Helen Merrill
  Helen Merrill
  Helen Merrill is an internationally known jazz vocalist.Merrill's recording career has spanned six decades and she is popular with fans of jazz in Japan and Italy as well as in her native United States...
  
  
• H.P. Lovecraft (band)
• Ila Auto
  Ila Auto
  Ila Auto is a Spellemannprisen winning bluegrass band from Oslo.- Discography :* If You Keep Pickin' it Might Never Heal * Over the Next Hill * Ila Auto...
  
  
• Isaac Guillory
  Isaac Guillory
  Isaac Guillory was an American folk guitarist. He wrote over 70 songs during a career that spanned 30 years.-Personal life:...
  
  
• Jack White
  Jack White (musician)
  Jack White , often credited as Jack White III, is an American musician, songwriter, record producer and occasional actor...
  
   (from the soundtrack
  Cold Mountain (soundtrack)
  Cold Mountain is the original soundtrack of the 2003 film Cold Mountain starring Jude Law, Nicole Kidman and Renée Zellweger.The album won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music and the World Soundtrack Award for Best Original Soundtrack of the Year in 2003...
  
   to the movie Cold Mountain
  Cold Mountain (film)
  Cold Mountain is a 2003 war drama film written and directed by Anthony Minghella. The film is based on the bestselling novel of the same name by Charles Frazier...
  
  )
• Jamie Woon
  Jamie Woon
  Jamie Woon is a British singer, songwriter and producer signed to Polydor who gained widespread acclaim in 2010 for his single Night Air which was co-produced by Burial, following his previous independent release, Wayfaring Stranger EP.The Eurasian son of a Malaysian Chinese father, and Scottish...
  
  
• JD Sumner and the Stamps Quartet
• Jeremy Steig
  Jeremy Steig
  -Biography:Steig is the son of New Yorker cartoonist William Steig,At age 19 Steig was involved in a motorcycle accident which left him paralyzed on one side...
  
  
• Jerry Garcia
  Jerry Garcia
  Jerome John "Jerry" Garcia was an American musician best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead...
  
   & David Grisman
  David Grisman
  David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...
  
  
• Jerry Reed
  Jerry Reed
  Jerry Reed Hubbard , known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American country music singer, innovative guitarist, songwriter, and actor who appeared in more than a dozen films...
  
  
• Jo Stafford
  Jo Stafford
  Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...
  
  
• Joan Baez
  Joan Baez
  Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....
  
   with Mimi Farina.
• John Stirratt
  John Stirratt
  John Stirratt is the bassist and multi-instrumentalist for Wilco, and The Autumn Defense.Stirratt was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on November 26, 1967 and grew up in nearby Mandeville. He attended Mandeville High School and the University of Mississippi...
  
  
• Johnny Cash
  Johnny Cash
  John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
  
  
• Joni Mitchell
  Joni Mitchell
  Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
  
  
• Kristin Hersh
  Kristin Hersh
  Kristin Hersh is an American singer/songwriter who performs solo acoustic concerts; she also continues to perform as lead singer and guitarist for alternative rock group Throwing Muses and the hardcore punk-influenced power trio 50 Foot Wave...
  
   (on the "In Shock
  In Shock (EP)
  In Shock is the first single from Kristin Hersh's seventh solo album Learn to Sing Like a Star. It was released in several versions by 4AD and Yep Roc Records. As well as the title track the single contains two new, previously unleashed Kristin Hersh tracks, "Windowpane" and "Blackstone" and the...
  
  ")
• Kristin Chenoweth
  Kristin Chenoweth
  Kristin Chenoweth is an American singer and actress, with credits in musical theatre, film and television. She is best known on Broadway for her performance as Sally Brown in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown , for which she won a Tony Award, and for originating the role of Glinda in the musical...
  
  
• Leland Martin
  Leland Martin
  Leland Martin is an American country singer. Martin was one of nine children; his grandmother and father were both country singers. He held jobs as a truck driver, house painter, and in a sawmill before signing with Rival Records, who issued his debut album in 1998...
  
  
• Lisbeth Scott
  Lisbeth Scott
  Lisbeth Scott is a vocalist who was featured on the soundtracks for the films The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and Munich. For the first film, she co-wrote and performed the song "Where." She also co-wrote and performed "Good...
  
  
• Lorie Line
  Lorie Line
  Lorie Line is a pianist and performer from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She grew up in Reno, Nevada playing the piano. She obtained B.A. in Music from the University of Nevada...
  
  ,"as a piano solo found on her website only"
• Maria McKee
  Maria McKee
  Maria Luisa McKee is an American singer and songwriter. She is best known for her work with Lone Justice and her 1990 UK solo chart-topping hit, "Show Me Heaven".-Music:...
  
  , (from the Songcatcher
  Songcatcher
  The film's score was written by David Mansfield, who also assembled a roster of female country music artists to perform mostly traditional mountain ballads. Some of the songs are contemporary arrangements, and some are played in the traditional Appalachian music style. The artists include Rosanne...
  
  film soundtrack)
• Michael Franti
  Michael Franti
  Michael Franti is an American poet, musician, and composer. He is the creator and lead vocalist of Michael Franti & Spearhead, a band that blends hip hop with a variety of other styles including funk, reggae, jazz, folk, and rock...
  
  
• Michael Parks
  Michael Parks
  Michael Parks is an American actor and singer. He has appeared in almost fifty films and has made frequent TV appearances, but is probably best known for his work in recent years with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, and Kevin Smith as well as the 1969 television series Then Came...
  
  , "Then Came Bronson", 1969
• Michael Todd
  Michael Todd (musician)
  Michael Todd or Mic Todd was the bassist for progressive rock band Coheed and Cambria. Todd left the band in August 2006 because of personal issues, but officially rejoined the group on April 25, 2007. Upon the time of his initial departure, he had been with the band for ten years. He officially...
  
  
• Mormon Tabernacle Choir
  Mormon Tabernacle Choir
  The Mormon Tabernacle Choir, sometimes colloquially referred to as MoTab, is a Grammy and Emmy Award winning, 360-member, all-volunteer choir. The choir is part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . However, the choir is completely self-funded, traveling and producing albums to...
  
  
• Natalie Merchant
  Natalie Merchant
  Natalie Anne Merchant is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She joined the alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs in 1981 and left it to begin her solo career in 1993.-Early life:...
  
  
• Neko Case
  Neko Case
  Neko Case is an American singer-songwriter, best known for her solo career and her contributions as a member of the Canadian indie rock group The New Pornographers....
  
  
• Noel Pointer
  Noel Pointer
  Noel Pointer was an American jazz violinist and record producer.He was nominated for a Grammy award in 1981. Pointer's reputation as an outstanding jazz musician and literary advocate garnered him honorary citizenship in cities across the United States...
  
  , "Phantazia", 1977
• Papa M
• Paul Robeson
  Paul Robeson
  Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
  
  
• Pete Seeger
  Pete Seeger
  Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
  
  
• Peter, Paul and Mary
  Peter, Paul and Mary
  Peter, Paul and Mary were an American folk-singing trio whose nearly 50-year career began with their rise to become a paradigm for 1960s folk music. The trio was composed of Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey and Mary Travers...
  
  
• Poutn%C3%ADci
• Richard Shindell
  Richard Shindell
  Richard Shindell is an American folk songwriter. Shindell grew up in Port Washington, New York. He currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with his wife, a university professor, and their children....
  
  
• Roger McGuinn
  Roger McGuinn
  James Roger McGuinn is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for being the lead singer and lead guitarist on many of The Byrds' records...
  
  
• Ronnie Hawkins
  Ronnie Hawkins
  Ronald "Ronnie" Hawkins is a Juno Award-winning rockabilly musician whose career has spanned more than half a century. Though his career began in Arkansas, USA, where he'd been born and raised, it was in Ontario, Canada where he found success and settled for most of his life...
  
  
• Selfmindead
  Selfmindead
  -History:Selfmindead formed in the winter of 1994-1995 in Eskilstuna, Sweden as a four piece. Marko Hautakoski on drums, Timo Sillankorva on guitar, vocalist Ilkka Viitasalo and bassist Tapani Hoikkaniemi. Mostly influenced by the Swedish Hardcore scene, bands such as Refused, Abhinanda, and...
  
  
• Sixpence None the Richer
  Sixpence None the Richer
  Sixpence None the Richer is an American rock/pop band that formed in New Braunfels, Texas, eventually settling in Nashville, Tennessee. They are best known for their songs "Kiss Me" and "Breathe Your Name" and their covers of "Don't Dream It's Over" and "There She Goes". The name of the band is...
  
  
• The Spizzwinks(?)
  The Spizzwinks(?)
  The Spizzwinks, whose name includes the parentheses and question mark, are an a cappella singing group of male students from Yale University. Founded in late 1913, the Spizzwinks are the oldest underclassman a cappella group in the United States, dating back to a first performance in early...
  
  
• Strawfoot
  Strawfoot
  Strawfoot is a six piece alternative country/Gothic Americana band from St. Louis, Missouri. The name is taken from the Civil War era march cadence of the same name. Their music infuses a variety of influences ranging from bluegrass, southern gospel and the blues, to eastern European folk and...
  
  
• Suzy Bogguss
  Suzy Bogguss
  Susan Kay "Suzy" Bogguss is an American country music singer. In the 1980s and 90s she released one platinum and three gold albums and charted six top ten singles, winning the Academy of Country Music's award for Top New Female Vocalist and the Country Music Association's Horizon Award.After...
  
  
• Tennessee Ernie Ford
  Tennessee Ernie Ford
  Ernest Jennings Ford , better known as Tennessee Ernie Ford, was an American recording artist and television host who enjoyed success in the country and Western, pop, and gospel musical genres...
  
  
• Tim Buckley
  Tim Buckley
  Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...
  
  
• Tony Rice
  Tony Rice
  Tony Rice is an American acoustic guitarist and bluegrass musician. He is considered one of the most influential acoustic guitar players in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and acoustic jazz.Rice spans the range of acoustic music, from traditional bluegrass to jazz-influenced New...
  
  
• Trace Adkins
  Trace Adkins
  Tracy Darrell "Trace" Adkins is an American country music artist. He made his debut in 1996 with the album Dreamin' Out Loud, released on Capitol Records Nashville. Since then, Adkins has released seven more studio albums and two Greatest Hits compilations...
  
  
• Trampled By Turtles
  Trampled By Turtles
  Trampled By Turtles is a progressive bluegrass band from Duluth, Minnesota. The group is most famous for its high-tempo, fast-paced songs but also features lead vocalist Dave Simonett's lyric writing abilities in slower ballads. Their high-energy concerts have attracted an ever-growing,...
  
  
• von Trapp Children
  Von Trapp children
  The Von Trapp Children are a musical group made up of Justin, Amanda, Melanie, and Sofia von Trapp, descendants of the Trapp Family Singers. They are the grandchildren of Werner von Trapp and great-grandchildren of Georg Ritter von Trapp and his first wife, Agathe Whitehead, and the...
  
  

See also

• Charles Davis Tillman: "I Am a Poor Wayfaring Stranger"

Further reading

• John F. Garst, "'Poor Wayfaring Stranger'—Early Publications," The Hymn: [A Publication of the Hymn Society in the United States and Canada
  Hymn Society in the United States and Canada
  The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, founded in 1922 as The Hymn Society of America and renamed in 1991, is a not-for-profit organization for those people who:* believe that congregational song is an integral component of worship...
  
  ], vol. 31, no. 2, 1980, pp. 97–101