Burl Ives - Poor Wayfaring Stranger Lyrics

I just feel like a dumb idiot. I heard that song a million times in different variations and just realized hes talking about dying and going to heaven.

This is the closest version to 1917 version.

My folks never missed watching Burl Ives when he was on television. He might have been my inspiration for wanting to sing in the choir. There will never be another like him.
Him and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

I first heard this song in the movie 1917 it sounds an old African folk song there are so many songs that are comparable to this song o love it

beautiful haunting version of the 1917 featured song......

Thnx to 1917 movie brought me to this song , I've never heard it before , I like it
Great respect to Burl Ives for this masterpiece that take my breath a way

Saif from Iraq

Saif Hallem The 1917 version is so good. Blew me away. Burl Ives didn’t write this song originally though. It’s about 100 years older American Folk/Spiritual song.

I’m not a religious person but when I heard this song in 1917 it took my breath away!

Wow how old were you at the time??

Wow. This is the best version I have heard so far. The others are dramatic but less holy than this one.

thank you 1917 for showing me this masterpiece

Likewise

I like that scuffed PepeHands

1917 brought me here. Never heard this song before then and I’m so glad I did now

Amazing voice!

At the tender age of 82 now (I'm a 1937 baby), I remember my mother playing her 78rpm records, and this was one of my all-time favorites.

This song has travelled far. I'm 40, first heard it in a Burial remix of Jamie Woon's version about 8 years ago.


If you google it there's well over a dozen covers and nobody knows for sure who originally wrote it. Definitely sounds like a slave era song to me.

Just watched 1917. This song was in it sang by Jos slovic.

@CateDoge thank you

That's amazing!

Burl Ives does the most haunting version of this old song.

Amazes me how minimal his guitar chords are in his songs. Sometimes two, or even one. Only the finest voice could sustain this. No one else sounded like him.

Indeed sir

I would like to lubricate Burl Ives's rectum then thoroughly sodomize him

This statement came from watching Burl Ives in the bathtub in the movie The Spiral Road. Burl Ives had big boobs for a man. I just love sex with fat old men like Burl Ives. May he rest in peace.

I would like to fondle Burl Ives's testicles and give him a blow job

Even better, because he's dead.

ferociousgumby I was making this statement in response to seeing Burl Ives in the bathtub in the movie The Spiral Road. I just love sex with fat older men like Burl Ives. Burl Ives has big boobs for a man. May he rest in peace.

Anyone know of a slower version of this song? I don't know the Artist. It was the "b" side of a 1970's "Robinson Crusoe" 45 r.p.m. I had. Its still THE MOST BEAUTIFUL thing I've ever heard, and it haunts me that I can't find it.

Mr KFC himself was a rude cunt hated by his family .

Some claim the song originally is neither from the white or the black community, but from Romani people. It has been sung in Norwegian romani communities for generations; here a version by Elias Akselsen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PVo_YRKy4

Precioso y conmovedor tema que no cansa oírlo .

There is a recording older than this one 1936 and it sounds amazing but the artist is unknown sadly

I'LL BE THE ONE. ED SHEERAN DID THE BEST REMAKE OF THIS SONG. NO FUCKS 0

I like the this version better then the others, mostly because it's the original version.

Vivian Fahey not the original guy sorry

I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world of woe
And there's no sickness, no toil, no danger
In that fair land to which I go

I'm going there to see my mother
I'm going there no more to roam

I'm just going over Jordan
I'm just going over home

Dmytro Kostenko thanks you helped me with my homework

This is the version I heard as a kid, Still my favorite, keeps it simple.

Burl Ives, Johnny Cash and Tim Buckley (live in London) did the versions that I love most of this song. Each one is different, each one is moving and very good...

definitely cash's my least fave of those

Jerry Reed did a wonderful version.

Check out Ed Sheeran's version

Everyone on here arguing about campfire songs, british or American...Cracking me up!!!  My Great Great Great Grand dad wrote this song.  He was a pastor and a singer song writer!

The best

The only good version of this song... I cannot stand all these other remakes

@David Templeton Nothing is absolute. Every opinion is subjective. Stop being absurd.

I couldn't find the astrocow 100 even on google. My farvorite is Kukurza, from "Whereon the Sunshine" album. It's on youtube.

There are so many great versions of this song. Many are better than this one.

Doc Watson has several versions better than this. And he's a master of the guitar also.

Maybe 1917 changed your mind?

my great great grand dad wrote this song in Ider alabma

+clarkjl1987 Serious?

+CLAN Mc Laughlin Very serious

u dont per chance have a recording do you? I can't find the original recording by the guy who wrote this

It was actually 'my' great grand dad's brother who wrote it before he emigrated there from County Donegal Ireland. Thank you

No, *I* wrote it! I'm very old.

I love this song. And Burl Ives sing it best. His voice is amazing , true inspiration

Very good. Listen to Trace Adkins version also.

Tennessee Ernie Ford did an excellent version also!

The wikpedia page very cleary states "American spiritual/folk song", so in other words....EAT SHIT!

There is a tune called Poor Wayfaring Stranger which is thought to be ancient-old traditional (English?). It is listed in the Associated Board of The Royal School of Music's publications; I found it whilst teaching my kids classical guitar. It sounds nothing like the American song. It is quite possible for two tunes to share a title and I think that is what has caused the confusion here.

I can't explain because the idea is absurd. Very few people in Britain (unless they've been got at by missionaries from the USA) believe that God is an old man in the sky and that they'll meet their physical mother after they die. We understand metaphor and can still enjoy the beauty of this simple song.

Spiritual matters can only be understood through the Spirit, not by the intellect.

Come Sir, you're having us on

Do you have an objection to hymns being sung round a camp fire? I've heard this sung by a group of 8-11 year olds around a camp fire and it was just beautiful.

Burlivial

This song is absolutely a black spiritual. The chord progression is a 12 bar blues and the melody is basically the minor pentatonic scale. I was surprised when I found out how old this song is thought to be because it just sounds like the blues to me, which didn't start really developing until the late 19th century.

...and Ed Sheeran seems to have taken his version from Jamie Woon who record a version before him.

JC´s version of this song rocks! Give it a listen.

i love this song its sad

the reason its ahrd to find is becasue its chnaged so much and also records of these things were not really kept, it was more word of mouth more then anything. either way its a great song now.

burl ives version is the closest version to the origional...i heard that the words were based off of something pretty far back ( forgot the time period) but it was changed and adapted to what this is now and changed still to the current versions. so in a way it is british/irish but in a way it isnt. theres a few songs out there like this.

According to the English Folk Dance And Song Society, this is an American song, and as they are a serious national library, I tend to believe them.

I beg your pardon -- this is not a "campfire" song. It's a hymn, and it has at least three verses, depending on who's singing it.

A good Campfire song. Just wish it was longer.

I wonder if Ed Sheeran did that because of that Grammy documentary that featured Electronic Music Producers remixing with other genres and the DJ that got country ended up using this recording... that's how i got here... great documentary called: Re:Generation Music Project

In the late 1960's this song was taught in my school was taught along with "Let My People go", as a black american spiritual that originated with the slaves.

Pru Cote I’m pretty sure that’s incorrect. It’s placed as an early 19th century folk/gospel song supposedly based on a Scottish Folk Song. Not to say it wasn’t picked up/became an important part of black culture though.

@Bumbley1 what he meant was the wayfaring stranger and let my people go was taught in school during the 60s

MR. Folk And The Music Our To Treasure

Thank you for the wonderful insightful notes, as well as this, perfect performance.

Gets me right in the heart, this song. I cry when I hear it. One of the most beautiful songs of all time. (I first heard it sung by Papa M, and loved his version, but the original... this one has floored me).

this is an English song. and a very old one, a crusaders song from Tudor England.
Well known.

I like this version a lot but johnny cash's version is still my favorite

Like if Re:Genereation Music Project brought you here.

Considering this has been a part of american folklore for a few centuries now, and the british are just now starting to learn of it leads me to believe that it's definitely not british. The fact of the matter is I don't think there's anyone actually credited with the writing of this song, so aside from Burl Ives being the first person actually credited with it's recording I think it's safe to assume for now that it's american.

(I want To apologize for my bad english)

This is a traditional British Song, someone said it is an American Song but it isn't, someone else known it as an American Song because who travelled from England to America took him culture(included music) and it was listened and handed down, and the time made his mistakes.
(I want apologize for my bad English)

Wikipedia does say it's American, not that Wikipedia is always correct but I think us brits are just jealous.

it only explains how stupid people are since Burl Ives did this on his 1944 album titled "The Warfaring Stranger". and Ed Sheeran did it recently

You're right. My Dad had that album on 78 rpm disks when I was a kid..

Amid all the going back and forth over origins, I'd like to acknowledge that this is one of the most beautiful versions of this great traditional song. Respect to Burl Ives.

@SketcheeChris I was just gonna say something along those lines... this is traditional folk music sung by an *incredibly gifted* artist.. the point is not to argue about the origin; the point is to come together and enjoy the music!

British, American, Northern Cambodian Ancient Ritual Song... Your all missing the point. The Focus is way too much on the origin and not the music itself.

@Nayzbabe Its a Appalachian folk song... 'nuff said. I live in north georgia so dont tell me im wrong.

i think the racket you build around this issue is simply ridiculous. a lot of idiots can put things on wiki that doesn't mean that everything is false on that site. also the white folk of the area mostly had british origins so basically 90% of the folk songs have british origins there. and if the melody came from britain it CAN be called british - here's my explanation on why you get all these flamers. but all this doesn't change the fact that we'll never know for sure SO WHY DOES IT MATTER???

This might beat Johnny Cash as my favorite version...

Hell yea dude same here

@jlunit10 Yeah, that might help to explain it. Thanks.

PLEASE NOTE: Before any more British people say that this is a British song, please read my notes & sources on the origins of this song in the information section above. Unless you have actual evidence that suggests that this is a British song, esp. strong enough evidence to refute the research listed above, then please refrain from calling this a British song here.

More helpfully, would somebody explain to me why so many Brits seem to see it as a British song? No one has given it a try yet.

@Nayzbabe Perhaps you aren't aware, but any Joe Blow can write the information for most Wikipedia articles. However, even in that article, the claim that it is British has already been disputed since it provides no citations. I could say that it's Chinese--that doesn't mean that it is if there is no proof that it is. So, I'll ask again if anyone has any reliable sources (scholarly or original sources) on the actual origins of this song? It's interesting to see that so many Brits claim it though.

@Sam1878Henry I've heard the claim that the song may have originally been (or been based on) a British (or Irish) ballad from the 18th century or before, but I've never actually seen any proof for that claim. Do you have any? I am curious about the origins of folk songs, but the only sources I've ever seen for this one are American ones from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Most evidence seems to suggest either an Appalachian or Negro spiritual origin for the song--so, no, not likely British.

*British spiritual/folk song

a minute and a half of reality. thank you.