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Angels Changed My Name/In Christ There Is No East or West/McKee
Traditional Old-Time, Gospel Spiritual
ARTIST: Jubilee Singers from the 1876 edition of the book "The Story of the Jubilee Singers: with their songs" by J.T.B. Marsh with music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOA_2YJuQik
CATEGORY: Traditional and Public Domain Gospel;
DATE: 1800s; 1876 "The Story of the Jubilee Singers: with their songs" by J.T.B. Marsh with music; Burleigh arranged the tune to fit Dunkerley's "In Christ There Is No East Or West" text in 1939 and it was published in The Hymnal 1940.
RECORDING INFO: Angels Changed My Name
Fisk Jubilee Singers. Marsh, J. B. T. / Story of the Jubilee Singers, Houghton Mifflin, Bk (1880), p227/#104
RECORDING INFO: In Christ There Is No East or West (Melody of "Angels Changed My Name" 1939 by Burleigh)- lyrics by William A. Dunkerley- 1908
Sing for the Fun of It, CSS, poc (194?), p69
Blood, Peter; and Annie Patterson (eds.) / Rise Up Singing, Sing Out, Sof (1992/1989), p239
Joyful Singing. Campfire Girls Edition, CSS, poc (1947ca), p71 (St. Peter C.M.)
Baker, Janita. Fingerpicking Dulcimer, Kicking Mule KM 219, LP (1982), trk# B.03
Cleland, Becky;, Ben and Wayne Seymour. Down in the Valley to Pray, Kudzu KPP 008, CD (2002), trk# 18
Fahey, John. Blind Joe Death, Vol. 1, Takoma C 1002, LP (1967), trk# 6
Fahey, John. Fahey, John / The Best of John Fahey, Guitar Player, fol (1977), p106
Kottke, Leo. Greenhouse, Capitol ST-11000, LP (1972), trk# 4
Miller, Dale. Wild Over Me, Rio Vista RV 101, LP (1982), trk# A.06
Miller, Rodney. Airplang, Rounder 0193, LP (1985), trk# 4a
Not Given. Tribute to John Fahey, Kicking Mule KM 155, LP (1979), trk# 10
OTHER NAMES: "Angels Done Changed My Name," "In Christ There Is No East or West" "McKee"
SOURCES: Folk Index; “Romancing the Folk: Public Memory and American Roots Music” by Benjamin Filene
NOTES: "Angels Changed My Name" was first published in the 1876 "The Story of the Jubilee Singers: with their songs" by Marsh with music which commemorated a tour by The Jubilee Singers, former slaves and their children, based at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee.
"Angels Changed My Name" is a metaphor of a person's name being added to the "Book of Life" by an angel thus reserving a place for the person in Heaven. This a different song than, "Angels in Heaven Done Signed my Name" which is also known as "I Know I Been Changed."
According to The American missionary, Volume 46 By American Missionary Association, Congregational Home Missionary Society 1892:
But carrying out the thought further, we find their idea of conversion and regeneration illustrated in the following hymn, "The Angels Done Changed my Name."
"I went to the hillside, I went to pray ;
I knew the Angels done changed my name,
Done changed my name for the coming day;
I knew the Angels done changed my name."
"I looked at my hands, my hands was new,
I knowed the Angels done changed my name;
I looked at my feet, and my feet was too,
Thank God, the Angels done changed my name."
Souls that sung, that felt that they knew the experiences of the great Apostle, when he said," Wherefore if any man is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature ; the old things are passed away; behold they are become new."
According to a letter from Charles Stanford to Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the tune was an Irish melody brought to the US and adapted by African-Americans. It was arranged for piano by Coleridge-Taylor in his Twenty-Four Negro Melodies, Op. 59 (Boston, 1905) under the title, "The Angels Changed My Name."
McKee was adapted from "The Angels Changed My Name," a Negro spiritual published
in the 1883 edition of Jubilee Songs by African-American baritone and composer/arranger Harry T. Burleigh (1866-1949), who named the tune after Rev. Elmer McKee, rector of St. George's Episcopal Church in New York, where Burleigh was a baritone soloist.
Burleigh arranged the tune to fit Dunkerley's "In Christ There Is No East Or West" text in 1939 and it was published in The Hymnal 1940.
In Christ There Is No East Or West- 1939
Tune McKee/The Angels Changed My Name
In Christ there is no East or West,
In Him no South or North;
But one great fellowship of love
Throughout the whole wide earth.
In Him shall true hearts everywhere
Their high communion find;
His service is the golden cord,
Close binding humankind.
Join hands, then, members of the faith,
Whatever your race may be!
Who serves my Father as His child
Is surely kin to me.
In Christ now meet both East and West,
In Him meet North and South;
All Christly souls are one in Him
Throughout the whole wide earth.
Words: William A. Dunkerley, 1908. Dunkerley wrote these words for the Pageant of Darkness and Light at the London Missionary Society’s exhibition “The Orient in London,” which ran from 1908 to 1914. Many hymnals credit the words to John Oxenham, Dunkerley’s pseudonym.
Here are the traditional lyric from the Fisk Jubilee Singers:
No. 104 The Angels Changed My Name- Jubilee Singers 1883
1. I went to the hillside, I went to pray,
I know the angels done changed my name.
Done changed my name for the coming day,
Thank God, the angels done changed my name.
Chorus: Done changed my name for the coming day,
I know the angels done changed my name.
Done changed my name for the coming day,
Thank God, the angels done changed my name.
2. I looked at my hands and my hands were new,
I know the angels done changed my name,
I looked at my feet and my feet were too,
Thank God, the angels done changed my name.
Chorus: Done changed my name for the coming day,
I know the angels done changed my name.
Done changed my name for the coming day,
Thank God, the angels done changed my name.
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