FAR BANKS OF JORDAN
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Look at ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan?
Over
the years since ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? was first released by Johnny
Cash and June Carter on a Columbia single and also on The Last
Gunfighter Ballad album in l976, I have been asked about the
circumstances under which the song was written. Beginning at
some point in l974, it has been my custom to write the date a new song is
completed at the top of the handwritten lyrics in the notebook I use when
I am actually working on a song. Excluding bits and pieces of paper
on which I might have jotted down a title or line or phrase while I?m
driving, working around the house, etc., it?s in this notebook where a new
song is originally written down. But ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? was
completed before I began dating the lyrics, so I am not sure of the exact
day it was written; in fact, I don?t even have the original manuscript.
I?ve been asked for a copy of the original, but the song simply pre-dates
my keeping the original, hand-written versions in notebooks.
However, I know where I was living when the song was composed, and
that helps me at least approximate when it was written. In
September of 1972, I moved from my home state of Texas to Nashville to
teach school for a living and to pursue a career in songwriting on the
side. I moved into a two-story, East Nashville boarding house run by
Mrs. Virgie Langford, an elderly lady who was a member of the same
church that I was attending and who was called Granny by all her boarders,
many of whom were students at the near-by Nashville Diesel College.
After having been in Music City for about a month, I landed a job with the
Nashville metropolitan school system, but I continued living in the
boarding house until I bought my own home around Christmastime of l973.
?Jordan? was written in my downstairs bedroom of that boarding house, so
the song was penned at some point between mid-September of l972 and
Christmas of l973.
Two events occurred during the sixteen months I lived at Granny Langford?s
home that MAY have influenced the writing of ?Jordan.? My parents
drove from Texas to visit me in the fall of ?73. They stayed at the
boarding house while they were in Nashville, and during the time they were
there, we received a call from California telling us that one of my
father?s brothers had passed away. This uncle, only in his 50?s, was
the first of my dad?s or mom?s brothers and sisters to go home to be with
the Lord. Also, in l972 the movie Sounder was released.
The film, starring Paul Winfield and Cicely Tyson, is the story of a black
Louisiana sharecropping family during the Great Depression.
Desperate to feed his family, the father swipes a ham from a neighbor?s
smokehouse and ultimately in imprisoned for his wrongdoing. His
family struggles to survive while he is doing time. His return home
is one of the most powerful movie scenes I?ve ever witnessed. Cicely
Tyson, who plays the sharecropper?s wife, is outside their shack working
when she notices a tattered man limping up the long lane that leads to
their home. She intently studies the man as he approaches, and when
she realizes that it is her husband, she goes berserk. Yelling and
wildly waving her arms, she dashes down the road to meet him, their three
children close on her heels.
Since I am not positive about the exact date when ?Jordan? was written, I
am not certain that my uncle?s death and my seeing Sounder occurred
BEFORE I wrote the song, but if either or both did precede the song, I
believe they had an influence. I think this is especially true of
the movie. I believe what people find most appealing about ?Far-Side
Banks of Jordan? is the chorus: ?I?ll be waiting on the far-side banks of
Jordan./I?ll be sitting drawing pictures in the sand./When I see you
coming, I will rise up with a shout/And come running through the shallow
water, reaching for your hand.? The picture painted in these lines
has a strong resemblance to the homecoming scene from Sounder.
The original recording of ?Jordan? was the result of two commitments I
made when I left my family and friends in Texas and moved to Nashville.
I decided that if I were going to leave behind everyone and everything I
knew and held dear to come to Tennessee to pursue songwriting, then I
needed to ?get serious? about the music business. I promised myself
that I would do my best to complete one new song a week and to pitch five
tapes per week to publishers, producers, artists?anyone who would give my
songs a listen. These efforts resulted in my first Nashville cut, by
Kitty Wells, in the spring of ?73, and not long after that, I submitted a
tape of gospel songs to the Oak Ridge Boys? publishing company, Silverline
Music. Silverline signed three songs to publishing contracts,
?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? being one of them. A few months later,
when the Oaks were appearing with Johnny Cash in Las Vegas, they pitched
?Jordan? to him. On the night that Duane Allen of the Oaks called me
and played the original Johnny Cash cut of the song (at this point it was
a solo by Cash and not a duet with June), Duane also told me that the Oaks
had recorded ?Lord, I?ve Been Ready for Years,? another of the songs that
had been signed with Silverline. Duane?s double-barreled phone call,
telling of cuts on songs of mine by two major artists, made the night an
extraordinary one for me. It took me a few days to ?come down? from
the news.
As the years went by and I was getting cuts by artists such as Roy Acuff,
Chris LeDoux, and Australian cowboy legend Smoky Dawson, new recorded
versions of ?Jordan? were being released. The Carter Family included
the song on an album in l976, and their version inspired a cut by
Bluegrass Brigade, a group based in Kansas City. Both these
recordings proved to be significant. Although June Carter Cash sings
part of the song at the close of the opening scene of Robert Duvall?s
movie The Apostle and an instrumental version is played when
June?who plays Duvall?s mother in the film?dies, it is the Carter Family
recording, twenty years after its original release, that was used on
the soundtrack CD for the movie. Bluegrass Brigade probably had the
first recorded bluegrass rendition of the song; and although Willard Cox
of the Cox Family told me that he had heard the Johnny Cash/June Carter
recording on the radio while the Coxes were playing a gig in Texas in the
late 70?s, Mae Burlison, who with her husband Jack make up the core of
Bluegrass Brigade, related to me that Willard pestered her to write down
the words after hearing their group perform the song at bluegrass
festivals where both acts were appearing.
In l994, when the Cox Family teamed with Alison Krauss for their first
Rounder Records release, I Know Who Holds Tomorrow, Willard chose
to include the song he?d heard for the first time almost twenty years
earlier. The popularity of the Cox Family/Alison Krauss CD, which
won a Grammy the following year, and the Coxes? including the song on
their live concert performances introduced ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? to
the bluegrass community at large. Within months, the song was being
included on recordings by various bluegrass and gospel groups.
At this writing, the song has been recorded over eighty times that I know
of, including a rendition by Grand Ole Opry star Ernie Ashworth on the CD
he released to celebrate his 35th anniversary as an Opry
member. ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? has also spread beyond the banks
of the USA, having been cut by well-known Irish singer Paddy O?Brien and
by at least two acts in Australia. In addition, my recording of the
song was included on a British Johnny Cash tribute CD; this collection
features various singers, was put together by English author and DJ Paul
Davis, and was released in the United Kingdom. ?Jordan? has appeared
on three Grammy-wining recordings: I Know Who Holds Tomorrow
by Alison Krauss and the Cox Family in l995, the soundtrack from the movie
The Apostle in l999, and June Carter Cash?s Press On, which
includes a new recorded version of the song by June and husband Johnny
Cash, in 2000.
When I began to broaden my musical horizons and become a singer/songwriter
as opposed to just a songwriter, I included the song on my first
album, Look at My Hands, a collection of original gospel songs
recorded in Nashville in l979. To date there have been three
recording projects which followed Look at My Hands. A
Double Dose of Country, a album containing a variety of secular
country songs was released in l986. Quilt of Memories (1996)
features songs built around the theme of reflecting on the past, and Texas
Roots (1999) is a salute to my home state and my Texas musical
heritage. My policy of attempting to finish one composition per week
has produced a catalog of between 1500-2000 songs. This catalog has
supplied the songs for all my recordings, and I am hopeful that I can
release other albums of original material in the future. My having
always recorded my own songs does not mean that there are not a lot of old
favorites that I enjoy singing and new songs by other writers that ?blow
me away.? Perhaps I will have the opportunity to include some of
both on forthcoming recording projects.
Watching how ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? has evolved over the years has
been a real education for me, and I now understand how one can listen to
folk songs such as ?Barbara Allen? and ?John Henry? and seldom hear two
versions that are alike. Variations in the lyrics of ?Jordan? range
from minor to what I consider major. A Texas bluegrass band added an
entire new verse that was handed to them by someone at a festival where
they were performing. A duet learned the song from the Texas group?s
recording, so the new verse was included again on the cassettes the duo
recorded to sell at their live performances, thus perpetuating what I
consider an inaccuracy in the song. Changes in the melody have not
been so major nor commonplace, but if one were to line up the eighty-plus
recordings of the song and listen to them back-to-back (which I?ve never
done but hope to do someday just for kicks), differences can be heard.
At a festival in Texas, I was off to myself with my guitar, rehearsing
some songs while preparing to go on stage when a couple who knew I had
written ?Jordan? ambled up and listened for a while. Later the wife
told me privately, ?My husband says those aren?t the original words to
that song.? I hope I wasn?t sarcastic when I answered, ?Well, I?m
the originator. I guess I ought to know.?
I understand the reason behind some of the lyric changes, especially by
gospel groups, in some of the versions of ?Jordan.? They want to
eliminate any indication in the song that the singer has discontent with
Heaven. I want to go on record that I certainly believe that there
will be absolutely nothing that will prevent us from enjoying the beauty
and glory and peace of eternity. Also, I KNOW that Christ is the
FIRST person we should be looking forward to seeing when we pass from this
life, but I also know that the hope of being reunited with our loved ones
is one of our prime motivations to keep pressing on here on earth. I
have always considered ?Jordan? more of a love song than a gospel song.
Certainly it has gospel overtones, but it is a song of faith and hope and
devotion. Perhaps it is an exaggerated statement of one?s love for
another, a love so strong that it motivates one to say, ?I love you so
much I would like to share my first glimpse of Heaven with you.?
Over the years, I have personally sung ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? at
funerals, and word has gotten back to me that the song has been sung or
recordings of it have been played at many other memorial services. I
wish I had logged all the stories that I?ve been told about what the song
has meant to folks?it?s the stuff of which books are made.
Just a few days before I sat down to write this piece, I was contacted by
a member of the bluegrass group Mixt Company. Mixt Company has
included ?Jordan? on their new CD, which at this writing has yet to be
released. They were playing in St. Louis and performed the song on
their program. After the show they were approached by a couple who
told them how much the song had meant to them and asked the group to sing
it again for them in the wings of the auditorium. Teary-eyed, the
husband and wife told the band about their twenty-two-year-old daughter
who had been brutally murdered while she was working at a fast-food
restaurant. A few weeks later, Mixt Company was performing in
Nashville. The same couple came up to them after the set and told
them that they had had the words to the chorus of the song inscribed on
their daughter?s tombstone. If ?Far-Side Banks of Jordan? offers
comfort and hope to people facing trials such as this, then the song
serves a purpose far beyond any that I imagined when it was written in
that little Nashville boarding-house bedroom.
Terry
Smith?Spring, 2001
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