Who’s “She,” and What Mountain is She Comin’ Round?

This is another one of those endlessly variable folk songs with about a hundred verses. You might ask, though, “Okay, but who’s the ‘she’ who’s comin’ round the mountain?” Good question. I originally made an assumption here, thinking that this was a literal woman, but she’s not that in the original at all. Guess what ‘she’ actually is? A chariot. That’s right. This song is drawn from a spiritual about the Second Coming of Christ, and the “she” refers to the chariot that “King Jesus” will be riding. As with many spirituals, though, there may be an underlying meaning about freedom and the Underground Railroad.

And, speaking of the railroad, the secularized version of this song became popular among railroad workers in the 1890’s. Heavy, monotonous work by a group can often be leavened by singing. So the field hands in the South sang, and perhaps encouraged each other with thoughts of a better life. And the railroad workers sang as they drove the spikes. (Or whatever else they had to do.) The on-the-fly inventiveness is again evident here; there are all sorts of verses, including “She’ll be wearing red pajamas when she comes” and “She’ll be carrying three white puppies when she comes” (obviously a dog lover came up with that one). I’m very sorry we’re not singing the “red pajamas” verse!

When I first wrote this post in connection with a concert that my own choir was singing, I got a little pushback about the biblical symbolism. “I don’t buy that,” said one of my fellow choir members. Honestly, though, I don’t ever try to spiritualize anything I write about; I go where the research takes me. The arrangement the choir sang harks back to the original with the lines. “We’ll all go out to meet her when she comes” which probably refers to the Rapture (or “taking away”) of Christians, when, as I Thessalonions 4:17 in the Christian New Testament says, “We who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” (NIV) There’s nothing specific about Jesus coming in a chariot, though. I wonder if that’s a perhaps-muddled reference to the story of Elijah’s being caught up to Heaven in a “fiery chariot.”  There are several references to Christ on a white horse in Revelation, the final book of the New Testament. And the hallelujahs are certainly appropriate!

I’m happy to report that the arranger of our version, Emma Lou Diemer, seems to still be with us. She was born in 1927 and according to her biography page she was continuing to compose as recently as 2012 and lives in Santa Barbara, five minutes away from the ocean. She is primarily known for her keyboard works and is an acclaimed keyboard performer, especially of the organ, having performed in many venues. I don’t see any commentary on this particular work of hers, but I think we’d all agree that it’s wildly inventive. Here’s the only individual live video I saw on YouTube–it doesn’t have many views but it’s pretty good:

Here’s one version of the lyrics, not the same as the ones in the video, but since it includes “purple pizza” I couldn’t resist:

© Debi Simons