Topic: Twelve Gates to the City

[uncle bud]

Been listening to a lot of Rev. Gary Davis lately. Coincidentally while giving a TV show I hadn't heard of called Hell on Wheels a spin, an unaccompanied vocal version was part of the background. It sounded like a white southerner singing, couldn't place it if it was a recording, perhaps just done for the show as it seemed intended to be a part of the atmosphere and scene setting.

The show takes place at the end of the Civil War and hearing the song in it made me wonder about its origins. It was definitely a version of the song Gary Davis sings. Obviously it could just be an anachronism, and there is other contemporary pop and rock-based music in the program.

Anyway, I'm wondering whether anyone knows the origins of the tune? Google has me awash in Judy Collins, Bonnie Raitt and Roger McGuinn results.

[Stuart]

http://blogs.amctv.com/hell-on-wheels/2012/03/season-1-music/

http://blogs.amctv.com/hell-on-wheels/music/

Ralph Stanley?

Haven't seen  it, Andrew, but maybe this is a lead.

[uncle bud]

Thanks, Stuart.  It sounded like someone who knew what they were doing, so Ralph Stanley is no surprise.

Though I am more interested in the origins of the song. Of course, RGD introduced Children of Zion as being 500 years old, so who knows...

Edit to add: I'm not implying there are Civil War-era origins, btw. I have no clue. Just wondering how far it goes back.

[Stuart]

I also tried a search by the alternate title, "Oh, What A Beautiful City," but with similar results. Perhaps an advanced search in "Books" might yield its earliest attested and extant published version--at least of those books (probably hymnals) held in the Google text base.

[Mr.OMuck]

"According to John, the New Jerusalem is "pure gold, like clear glass" and its "brilliance [is] like a very costly stone, as a stone of crystal-clear [/size]jasper[/color][/size]." The street of the city is also made of "pure gold, like transparent glass". The base of the city is laid out in a square and surrounded by a wall made of jasper. It says in Revelation 21:16 that the height, length, and width are of equal dimensions - as were the [/size]Holy of Holies[/color][/size] in the [/size]Tabernacle[/color][/size] and First Temple - and they measure 12,000 [/size]furlongs[/color][/size] which is approximately 1500.3 miles). John writes that the wall is 144 [/size]cubits[/color][/size], which is assumed to be the width since the length is mentioned previously. 144 cubits are about equal to 65 meters, or 72 yards. It is important to note that 12 is the square root of 144. The number 12 was very important to early Jews and Christians, representing the 12 tribes of Israel and 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ. The four sides of the city represented the four cardinal directions (North, South, East, and West.) In this way, New Jerusalem was thought of as an inclusive place, with gates accepting all of the 12 tribes of Israel from all corners of the earth."
[/size]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerusalem

[uncle bud]

Well, yeah, but I still meant the song.

[CF]

The radio session Big Bill, Brownie & Sonny did with Studs Terkel . . . Sonny plays 12 Gates & says he knew it as a child that his mother sang it. Maybe he actually learned if from Gary Davis (who recorded it in '35).

[Stuart]

Given the extent of writing on the Bible, any general search is going to result in a needle in a haystack of needles. (As I have found out.) What we need is a searchable text base with some tight search parameters so the results don't include everything under the sun containing any of the search words. And even then, there are limitations.

It might be worth your while to just check a good library to see what its holdings contain re: hymnals, and then go through the table of contents, starting with the oldest one, to see if it contains "Twelve Gates to the City" or "Oh, What a Beautiful City." You never know until you try.

One potential problem is that older books might be held in the library's rare book collection and thus access may be restricted. But you can cross that bridge if and when you come to it.

Phil, I hear the New York Public Library calling your name.

[Mr.OMuck]

http://people.bethel.edu/~rhomar/


http://www.smithcreekmusic.com/Hymnology/American.Hymnody/African.American/blackspirituals.html




http://www.negrospirituals.com/composers.htm

[Mr.OMuck]

Evidently you're not alone Andrew...


http://lyricfest.org/journey-toward-freedom-2/oh-what-a-beautiful-city-who-made-up-this-song/

[uncle bud]

The version at http://www.negrospirituals.com/news-song/oh_what_a_beautiful_city.htm suggests at least origins back into the 19th century, though I base that only on the use of dialect, not any background information that appears on the site, since there's nothing. This one uses those floating "dressed in red" verses that occur in Wade in the Water etc.

OH ! WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CITY


Oh! What a beautiful city!
Oh! What a beautiful city!
Oh! What a beautiful city!
Twelve gates to the city
!Hallelu!

Three gates in-a de east
Three gates in-a de west
Three gates in-a de north
Three gates in-a de south
Making it twelve gates to de city
Hallelu!

My Lord built-a dat city
Said it was jus-a fo? square
Wanted all-a you sinners
To meet Him in-a de air
Cause He built twelve gates-a to city
Hallelu!

Who are all-a those children
All dressed up in white?
They must be the children
Of the Israelites
?Cause He built twelve gates-a to city
Hallelu!

Who are all-a those children
All dressed up i red?
They must be the children
That Moses led
The Lord built twelve gates-a to city
Hallelu!

When I get to Heaven
I?m gonna sing an shout
Ain?t nobody up there
Gonna take me out
?Cause He built twelve gates-a to city
Hallelu!

[frankie]

I was just about to post that link, UB...  those lyrics are interesting, and just looking over them, they seem to scan pretty well with the accompaniment played by Rev. Davis and what I can remember of those played by Sonny Terry and Blind Boy Fuller.

It sure would be nice to know what the source of the transcription is.

[Mr.OMuck]

I think this song's origins are probably shrouded in slavery's sad cloud of anonymity.

[Kokomo O]

You're undoubtedly right about that, Mr. O'Muck, or at least Reconstruction's equally sad cloud of anonymity.

One thing that caught my attention in the lyrics, though, which I'd never picked up on while listening, is the reference to the children dressed in red. We infer from Louis Collins that dressing in red, for women at least, is a funerary custom, at least among African Americans of a certain time and place. Maybe that verse is an allusion to the losses of slavery, referring as it does to the children that Moses led from bondage. Interesting that it follows on the reference to children dressed in white, who seem to be resident in the promised land.

That points to origin, or at least modification, in the black tradition, outside of the written hymnals.

[uncle bud]

Hi K. - Re. dressing in red (and white, black, blue etc.) for a funeral. I've posted elsewhere my strong doubts and informal, limited research regarding this as a funerary custom starting here http://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=1105.msg48261#msg48261. Prepare for windbaggery, ye who pursue that link. 

I agree all things point to the spiritual tradition and, by extension, likely an anonymous composer in the slavery, Reconstruction or Jim Crow eras. Whether Twelves Gates was written in a later, more formal composition process or originates earlier as a traditional slave song would be nice to know. I've found nothing so far in some preliminary browsing and searching through collections of spirituals and slave songs, other than the text above.