Level: 3/4
Tuning: Standard

This is Rev. Davis’ signature song. It is a masterpiece that stands up there with any virtuoso’s song from any tradition. According to the story I heard, the substantial royalties from this song helped change Rev. Davis’ and Annie’s lives. In the office of Peter Paul and Mary’s lawyers, Rev. Davis was asked if, in fact, he wrote that song. After a pause, he said no. Because they wanted him to have that money, everyone was surprised. He then said, to great relief all around, that “the Lord gave it to me in 1927.”

Apparently this satisfied the lawyers, who did not know that both Blind Willie Johnson and Rev. T. T. Rose recorded it that very year. Rev. Rose’s recording is very close to Rev. Davis’. But he was savvy enough to see it as a way out of the poverty that dogged his life until then.