Download PDF of Shall We Gather at the River

What is it about water that so many of songs of the spirit conjure with it? “Wade in the water, children! God’s going to trouble the water!”, ”Like a tree that is planted by the water, we shall not be moved,” “By the waters of Babilon we lay down and wept when we remembered thee, O Zion!” And, I guess I just love hymns; and this one is so happy and so deep that I just have to include it.

Well, of course there are a couple of versions of this. Burl Ives is so unselfconsciously hokey that you have to love him.

This next one by Buddy Greene is so sweet that you almost can’t listen to it. Well, actually, it’s under copyright so you can’t listen to it here even if you want to; you have to go to YouTube. Click on the image.

Though it’s basically such a jolly song, most of the recordings of Shall We Gather at the River take it slowly and with a kind of cloying sincerity. I have no idea who the Hee Haw Gospel Quartet is (are?)—maybe they were connected to that old TV show? —but I kind of like their homespun take on this old standard even if it is offered tongue-in-cheek. (I’m still waiting for an African American gospel version. If you run across one, please send me a link!)