I’LL FLY AWAY

Penny For Your Thoughts By: Nancy Whitaker

“When I die, hallelujah bye and bye, I’ll Fly Away”

This is a dear old hymn that I always knew growing up and I still play and love it. 

The year is 1958 so let’s all go to church and we can listen to this old gospel tune. 

You hear:

People singing loud, hands clapping, feet stomping as the familiar words of “I’ll Fly Away” rang out. 

I was raised in the Pentecostal faith  and we loved our hand clapping  and raising our hands in praise to the Lord.

Now my age is up there, and I have heard this old gospel song  since I was little. So, just how old is this song and who wrote it?

I’ll Fly Away was written in 1929 in a cotton field by hymn writer Allen Brumley.  He  was  picking cotton and was thinking about how one day he would stop working in the hot heat and get his wings and Fly away, leaving behind the work in the cotton fields.  He was 24 years old at the time

Brumley’s rural background made it natural for him to appeal to the common man. Even as a small lad picking cotton in LeFlore County, Oklahoma, he knew he would much rather be involved in music than in any other occupation. 

At age 17, he began his serious music study, and during the next several years received training and instruction from several mentors and one of them was  E. M. Bartlett, the composer of “Victory in Jesus.”

In 1931, while teaching a singing school in Powell, Missouri, Brumley met Goldie Edith Schell. They were married shortly thereafter. Although he had begun his songwriting, he had done nothing with the songs. Goldie encouraged him to send his manuscripts to a publisher, assuring him that the songs had quality and that “any publisher would be glad to publish them.”

Acting on Goldie’s advice and encouragement, his first submission to a publisher was “I’ll Fly Away.” As a result, the song, written during The Depression, was carried to the nation by radio and traveling Southern Gospel quartets. 

People everywhere were receiving renewed hope as they listened to “I’ll Fly Away” and other Brumley compositions.

The song “I’ll fly away “ is one of gospel musics most recorded songs having been recorded approximately 5000 times. 

Do you know and sing “I’ll Fly Away” ? Did you know that it was written in 1929?  So now I will say “When I die hallelujah bye and bye, I’ll Fly Away.” Tell me your thoughts about this song and I’ll give you  A Penny For Your Thoughts.