How Can I Keep From Singing!

You may be familiar with the song How Can I Keep from Singing (#108 in Singing the Living Tradition with the title My Life Flows on in Endless Song). Its origin is obscure with words attributed to the Quakers and music to an American Gospel tune. The song entered Unitarian Universalism in 1969 when it was included in Songs of Faith in Man, published by the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles. Pete Seeger had sent it to the church for the songbook. He had discovered the song during the Christmas season in 1956 and immediately added it to his repertoire, recording it several times during his career. Seeger learned the song from Doris Plenn, who had learned it from her grandmother, a North Carolina Quaker. It was her grandmother’s favorite song, supposedly written 250 years earlier. Plenn put her mark on the song by writing an additional verse during the McCarthy era to protest the jailing of her friends for their political beliefs. Those words, slightly altered, form the third verse in Singing the Living Tradition.

When the song was published in Sing Out, a folk music magazine founded by Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, the magazine’s editors were only able to find one published version of the song. It had appeared in Ira Sankey’s 1894 collection of Gospel Hymns with a tune written by Sankey. That tune was less compelling than the one Seeger had learned. The author of the text, which reflected 19th century church tradition, was listed as anonymous. It was not until 1998 that the origins of the song were clarified, which involved considerable research on my part to uncover “the rest of the story.”

How Can I Keep from Singing first appeared in an 1869 collection of Sunday School songs, entitled Bright Jewels. The Rev. Robert Lowry had written the music, as popularized by Seeger. The words were not attributed, but Lowry did that with about half of his hymns. Anna Bartlett Warner (1827-1915) had, in fact, written unattributed words to another of Lowry’s hymns in that same collection, One More Day’s Work for Jesus. That hymn was, along with How Can I Keep from Singing, two of some ten hymns for which Lowry had become famous. It is believed that Anna Bartlett Warner, who used the pen name Amy Lothrop, wrote the original words to How Can I Keep from Singing. (The song has also been attributed to her sister, Susan Warner, but with less conviction.) Anna also wrote the words to the well-loved Sunday School song that begins, “Jesus loves me, this I know . . . “

While the bones of Anna’s verses have survived, some words were changed. The phrases “the Lord my Savior” and “Christ is Lord” were replaced with the words “truth” and “love.” Those who were responsible for the revisions are unknown, but the "metaphors" used are interesting. In the end, the song comes to us, not directly from Christian hymnody, but by way of the American folk music tradition. Nonetheless, both the words and the music were always intended to be engaging and energizing. As H. Wiley Hitchcock wrote, “. . . the gospel hymn was a product of the northern urban revivals, organized and attended mostly by whites . . . Gospel hymnodists like . . . Sankey . . . , and the Rev. Robert Lowery cannily adopted the early revival hymn’s infectious pattern of a verse followed by a catchy, and usually thunderous, refrain. . . . The result, at its best, was a kind of religious pop art almost irresistible in its visceral appeal.” This song’s irresistibility is captured in the refrain, “How can I keep from singing!” This is not a question. It is both explanation and exclamation!

Having shared the background of this song, let me suggest that as Unitarian Universalists, knowing our history is important. And this song is becoming part of our history. It is particularly important to know our history when any woman’s voice is lost either by being ignored or, perhaps worse, being labeled anonymous, as was the case with Anna Bartlett Warner.

Biographical Note: Anna’s father was Henry Warner, a wealthy New York City lawyer, who lost most of his fortune in the 1837 depression. The family moved to their summer home (Good Craig) on Constitution Island in the Hudson River. It was there that Anna and her sister Susan began writing books and hymns to earn money. They also conducted Bible classes for cadets at the Military Academy at West Point, which was nearby.