Absolutely, Without-A-Doubt The Single Greatest Song EVER Recorded,
No. 1: "Fifty Miles of Elbow Room" by Rev. F.W. McGee
July 22, 2010
[The first part of an ongoing series in which I make outrageous claims in praise of a particular song, only to turn around shortly and make very similar claims about an entirely different song.]
A lot of people can’t handle old-timey music. In most cases, I think, it feels too remote, not something they can relate to at all. Often, the impulse to mock the hackneyed (and occasionally bizarre) sentiments is too strong, or the urge to laugh nervously at the earnestness and immediacy of the primitive recordings becomes unbearable. To each his own, of course, but they miss out on one of the most affecting listening experiences that exists: the sound of pure music made for pure reasons—to uplift and to console and to commiserate and to entertain—without a thought to the attention-starved delusions that now seem inextricable from the recording industry. That last word is the key, of course—these early folk, blues and gospel recordings were made before music was an industry, at least not like we think of it today. These songs were recorded largely because they could be; if they hadn’t been, however, they still would have existed in the mouths of common men and women who sought personal expression through music, and in the hearts and minds of the common men and women who found pleasure or solace in their messages. Recordings from the 20s and 30s allow us a rare opportunity to bridge the gap between society’s ancient customs and the technological complications of the modern world, and they provide us with an invaluable glimpse into what life was like for the people who straddled that divide, a foot on either shore.
******
The Reverend F.W. McGee was a preacher (and choirmaster) in the Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ; he moved through the South with some frequency, establishing churches and leading revivals. One of his closest acolytes was a blind pianist named Arizona Dranes, who would later achieve some renown on her own as a recording artist. Despite the absence of her name in the recording credits for this song, she can be heard just as clearly as the good Reverend on this 1930 recording, and deserves individual credit for her powerful singing and playing.
The sentiment contained in this song is very touching, in a way. Based on an obscure passage in the Bible, from which scholars later made a highly questionable attempt to calculate the physical dimensions of heaven, the song offers solace to the downtrodden and dispossessed, those living in cramped and squalid quarters, by offering a vision of Heaven in which there is plenty of room for everyone to move around, with gates so massive that, as you enter, you’ll have 50 miles of elbow room extending in either direction. Mankind has come up with quite a few self-serving concepts of Heaven; I can’t help but be moved by the modesty and simplicity of this idea.
If you’ve never heard this version of “50 Miles of Elbow Room,” then it’s safe to say you’ve never heard anything like it, either. It is a peerless recording—so chock full of exuberance and religious zeal that it seems as though the owners of these long-dead voices knew that they were taking their one shot at posterity and determined to sing with a fervor that could reverberate across time. As raucous and jubilant a celebration of faith as you will ever hear, and one that can never be forgotten.
Regardless of whether the spiritual impulse is innate or a product of societal conditioning, I can say in complete seriousness that this song speaks to that impulse within me more strongly than any sermon I heard in my childhood.
--BW
July 22, 2010
[The first part of an ongoing series in which I make outrageous claims in praise of a particular song, only to turn around shortly and make very similar claims about an entirely different song.]
A lot of people can’t handle old-timey music. In most cases, I think, it feels too remote, not something they can relate to at all. Often, the impulse to mock the hackneyed (and occasionally bizarre) sentiments is too strong, or the urge to laugh nervously at the earnestness and immediacy of the primitive recordings becomes unbearable. To each his own, of course, but they miss out on one of the most affecting listening experiences that exists: the sound of pure music made for pure reasons—to uplift and to console and to commiserate and to entertain—without a thought to the attention-starved delusions that now seem inextricable from the recording industry. That last word is the key, of course—these early folk, blues and gospel recordings were made before music was an industry, at least not like we think of it today. These songs were recorded largely because they could be; if they hadn’t been, however, they still would have existed in the mouths of common men and women who sought personal expression through music, and in the hearts and minds of the common men and women who found pleasure or solace in their messages. Recordings from the 20s and 30s allow us a rare opportunity to bridge the gap between society’s ancient customs and the technological complications of the modern world, and they provide us with an invaluable glimpse into what life was like for the people who straddled that divide, a foot on either shore.
******
The Reverend F.W. McGee was a preacher (and choirmaster) in the Pentecostal denomination Church of God in Christ; he moved through the South with some frequency, establishing churches and leading revivals. One of his closest acolytes was a blind pianist named Arizona Dranes, who would later achieve some renown on her own as a recording artist. Despite the absence of her name in the recording credits for this song, she can be heard just as clearly as the good Reverend on this 1930 recording, and deserves individual credit for her powerful singing and playing.
The sentiment contained in this song is very touching, in a way. Based on an obscure passage in the Bible, from which scholars later made a highly questionable attempt to calculate the physical dimensions of heaven, the song offers solace to the downtrodden and dispossessed, those living in cramped and squalid quarters, by offering a vision of Heaven in which there is plenty of room for everyone to move around, with gates so massive that, as you enter, you’ll have 50 miles of elbow room extending in either direction. Mankind has come up with quite a few self-serving concepts of Heaven; I can’t help but be moved by the modesty and simplicity of this idea.
If you’ve never heard this version of “50 Miles of Elbow Room,” then it’s safe to say you’ve never heard anything like it, either. It is a peerless recording—so chock full of exuberance and religious zeal that it seems as though the owners of these long-dead voices knew that they were taking their one shot at posterity and determined to sing with a fervor that could reverberate across time. As raucous and jubilant a celebration of faith as you will ever hear, and one that can never be forgotten.
Regardless of whether the spiritual impulse is innate or a product of societal conditioning, I can say in complete seriousness that this song speaks to that impulse within me more strongly than any sermon I heard in my childhood.
--BW
