I Wonder as I Wander, from Family Christmas Online™

"I Wonder as I Wander" was partially collected and partially written by John Jacob Niles, who also wrote "Black is the Color of my True Love's Hair," another "folk" classic. Niles loved folk music so much that he spent decades between 1910 and 1938 traveling the back roads and sitting on the back porches of Appalachia collecting folk songs of all kinds.

In July, 1933, in Murphy, North Carolina, Niles met a young girl named Annie Morgan. Annie's family of intinerant evangelists was about to be run out of town for being a public nuisance. Annie sang three lines of this tune, and Niles was so enchanted by the haunting melody that he paid her about two dollars to get her to sing it over and over again until he was sure he had written down all she knew. Unfortunately it wasn't enough to consider a real song. But later Niles reworked the bits of tune into something that resembled a melody and added enough words to make it singable. (For Niles' own description of the experience, click here. Since the song began receiving public attention, it has been recorded by all sorts of musicians and has even found its way to "respectable" hymnals.

To people accustomed to classical and "popular" music, this song seems to end on the "wrong note." Arrangers also find it difficult to harmonize using the kind of chordal harmonies most Western musicians have been using since the time of J.S. Bach. But this tune comes from a tradition that dates back to medieval times, when key signatures and time signatures were still evolving, and the "rules" of modern harmony had yet to be written. To those who claim that such tunes end on the "wrong note," John Jacob Niles would tell you what his father told him, that the good thing about Applachian tunes is that "the song ends when it's over" (whether it's on the "right" note or not).

I wonder as I wander out under the sky,
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die.
For poor on'ry people like you and like I...
I wonder as I wander out under the sky.

When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall,
With wise men and farmers and shepherds and all.
But high from God's heaven a star's light did fall,
And the promise of ages it then did recall.

If Jesus had wanted for any wee thing,
A star in the sky, or a bird on the wing,
Or all of God's angels in heav'n for to sing,
He surely could have it, 'cause he was the King.

If you have any corrections or comments you would like to make about this page, please contact me and I will be glad to hear from you. God bless - Paul