The Great Speckled Bird (song)
| "The Great Speckled Bird" | |
| Written by | Guy Smith |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Form | AABA 12 bars |
| Original artist | Roy Acuff 1936 |
| Recorded by | Johnny Cash, Nokie Edwards and The Light Crust Doughboys |
| Performed by | Nokie Edwards and The Light Crust Doughboys |
"The Great Speckled Bird" is a Southern hymn whose lyrics were written by the Reverend Guy Smith. It is an allegory referencing Fundamentalist self-perception during the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.[1] The song is in the form of AABA and has a 12 bar count. It is based on Jeremiah 12:9, "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour." It was recorded in 1936 by Roy Acuff. It was also later recorded by Johnny Cash and Kitty Wells (both in 1959), Hank Locklin (1962), Lucinda Williams (1978), Bert Southwood (1990), Marion Williams, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
The tune is the same apparently traditional melody used in the folk song "I Am Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes," originally recorded in the 1920s. The same melody was later used in the 1952 country hit "The Wild Side of Life," sung by Hank Thompson, and the even more successful "answer song" performed by Kitty Wells called "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels." A notable instrumental version is found on the Grammy Award-Nominated album 20th Century Gospel by Nokie Edwards and The Light Crust Doughboys on Greenhaw Records. [2]
The connection between these songs is noted in the David Allan Coe song "If That Ain't Country" that ends with the lyrics "I'm thinking tonight of my blue eyes/ And finding the great speckled bird/ I didn't know God made honky-tonk angels/ and went back to the wild side of life."
Both the song "The Great Speckled Bird" and the passage from Jeremiah may be a poetic description of mobbing behavior.[3]
[edit] Published Versions
The interpretation as it was meant, is not of a mobbing if you listen to the words in detail it is not about a bird at all.
The Great Speckled Bird in this lyrics represents the Christian religion and the song speaks of the rapture and the great tribulation period, and how the Christian believers will rise up and be raptured and kept away from what will be Armageddon.
1.What a beautiful thought I am thinking Concerning a great speckled bird Remember her name is recorded On the pages of God's Holy Word.
2. All the other birds are flocking 'round her And she is despised by the squad But the great speckled bird in the Bible Is one with the great church of God.
3. All the other churches are against her They envy her glory and fame They hate her because she is chosen And has not denied Jesus' name.
4. Desiring to lower her standard They watch every move that she makes They long to find fault with her teachings But really they find no mistake.
5. She is spreading her wings for a journey She's going to leave by and by When the trumpet shall sound in the morning She'll rise and go up in the sky.
6. In the presence of all her despisers With a song never uttered before She will rise and be gone in a moment Till the great tribulation is o'er.
7. I am glad I have learned of her meekness I am proud that my name is on her book For I want to be one never fearing The face of my Savior to look.
8. When He cometh descending from heaven On the cloud that He writes in His Word I'll be joyfully carried to meet Him On the wings of that great speckled bird.
- March 26, 1936 Aurora, Missouri 'Advertiser'
- 1937 M.M. Cole Publishing Company, Chicago attributes music to Roy Acuff, words to Guy Smith. [4]
[edit] References
- ^ See "Radio: Opry Night," Time Magazine, Monday, Jan. 29, 1940. and Russell Moore, The Cross and the Jukebox: The Great Speckled Bird, Feb. 5, 2011.
- ^ www.theconnextion.com/artgreenhaw and official records, The Recording Academy
- ^ JA Emerton (1969). "Notes on Jeremiah 12 9 and on some suggestions of J. D. Michaelis about the Hebrew words naḥā, ‘abrā, and ja jadă". Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 81 (2): 182–191.
- ^ Vance Randolph, 'Ozark Folk Songs' University of Missouri Press, 1980 ISBN 0826202977 OCLC 6442634
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