John Brown's Body - History of The Tune

History of The Tune

"Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us", the tune that eventually became associated with John Brown's Body and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, was formed in the American camp meeting circuit of the early to mid 1800s. In that atmosphere, where hymns were taught and learned by rote and a spontaneous and improvisatory element was prized, both tunes and words changed and adapted in true folk music fashion:

Specialists in nineteenth-century American religious history describe camp meeting music as the creative product of participants who, when seized by the spirit of a particular sermon or prayer, would take lines from a preacher's text as a point of departure for a short, simple melody. The melody was either borrowed from a preexisting tune or made up on the spot. The line would be sung repeatedly, changing slightly each time, and shaped gradually into a stanza that could be learned easily by others and memorized quickly.

The written record of the tune can be traced to 1858 in a book called The Union Harp and Revival Chorister, selected and arranged by Charles Dunbar, and published in Cincinnati. The book contains the words and music of a song "My Brother Will You Meet Me", with the music but not the words of the "Glory Hallelujah" chorus; and the opening line "Say my brother will you meet me". In December 1858 a Brooklyn Sunday school published a hymn called "Brothers, Will You Meet Us" with the words and music of the "Glory Hallelujah" chorus, and the opening line "Say, brothers will you meet us", under which title the song then became known. The hymn is often attributed to William Steffe, though the category of "composer" fits poorly into the camp meeting and oral folk tradition of the time. Steffe's role may have been more as transcriber and/or modifier of a commonly sung tune or text that had arisen through a folk tradition—or originator of a text and tune that was honed and modified by many others before reaching the forms best known today— than as composer per se.

Robert W. Allen summarizes Steffe's own story of composing the tune, based on letters now found in the Kansas Historical Society—a story that confirms the flexible oral tradition in which "Say, Brothers" originated:

Steffe finally told the whole story of the writing of the song. He was asked to write it in 1855 or 56 for the Good Will Engine Company of Philadelphia. They used it as a song of welcome for the visiting Liberty Fire Company of Baltimore. The original verse for the song was "Say, Bummers, Will You Meet Us?" Someone else converted the "Say, Bummers" verse into the hymn "Say, Brothers, Will You Meet Us." He thought he might be able to identify that person, but was never able to do so.

As with many similar tunes arising from an oral and folk tradition in this period and milieu, precisely tracing authorship is problematic. For instance, some sources list Thomas Brigham Bishop, Frank E. Jerome, and others as the tune's composer. As Steffe himself indicates, many others—known and unknown—undoubtedly did play a role in creating different versions of the hymn, modifying it, and disseminating it.

Some researchers have maintained that the tune's roots go back to a "Negro folk song", an African-American wedding song from Georgia, or to a British sea shanty that originated as a Swedish drinking song. Given that the tune was developed in an oral tradition, it is impossible to say for certain which of these influences may have played a specific role in the creation of this tune, but it is certain that numerous folk influences from different cultures such as these were prominent in the musical culture of the camp meeting, and that such influences were freely combined in the music-making that took place in the revival movement.

It has been suggested that "Say Brothers, Will You Meet Us", popular among Southern blacks, already had an anti-slavery sub-text, with its reference to "Canaan's happy shore" alluding to the idea of crossing the river to a happier place. If so, that sub-text that was considerably enhanced and expanded as the various John Brown lyrics took on themes related to the famous abolitionist and the American Civil War.