People get ready

Run time: 03:22 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0adt4OJO1g   Posted on YouTube: December 02, 2009 By YouTube Member: ChinleMiller Views on YouTube: 2988   Posted on DU: October 20, 2011 By DU Member: Dover Views on DU: 786

 
Sung by Eva Cassidy http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8W9rPxxnP4&feature=related

People get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear diesels humming
You don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord
Yeah yeah yeah

People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast
Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There's room for all
Among the loved and lost

Now there ain't no room
For the hopeless sinner
Who抯 hard on mankind
Just to save his own
Have pity on those
Whose chances are thinner
Cause there's no hiding place
From the Kingdom's Throne

Ohh people get ready
There's a train a-coming
You don't need no baggage
You just get on board
All you need is faith
To hear diesels a- humming
You don't need no ticket
You just thank the Lord
Yeah yeah yeah

I'm getting ready
I - I'm ready yeah yeah yeah
Oh I'm getting ready oh - oh
I'm ready yeah

******************

It's an honor...a gift...to be here now. We, who hear the calling, are all uniquely qualified to answer.
There is a great purpose and we all know what it is in our core.
It is not about jobs or money or healthcare or pensions...this is about inner movement toward the peace and love
that lies at our true center. It is about reverance for life, for humanity and the planet and a recognition of
our connection and place within the whole.
That is what we're here to free. There are times of great sadness and times
of great joy as the train moves forward. But there is no fear.




Aug. 26, 2003 -- Part of the March on Washington's legacy is its music. Singer and songwriter Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" was written in the year after the march. For many, it captured the spirit of the march -- the song reaches across racial and religious lines to offer a message of redemption and forgiveness. It's the latest report by NPR's Juan Williams on the march, which took place 40 years ago this week.

After hearing the Rev. Martin Luther King deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech that August day in 1963, the crowd of 250,000 sang "We Shall Overcome." In 1965, another gospel song emerged -- "People Get Ready" by Mayfield and the Impressions.

People get ready, there's a train a-comin'
You don't need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesels hummin'
Don't need no ticket, you just thank the Lord

In addition to the march, the song followed several jarring events in American history: the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham -- which killed four little girls -- and the assassination of President Kennedy.

Music critic Stanley Crouch explains Mayfield's response to those events: "...by saying 'There's a train a-coming, get ready' that was like saying, okay, so regardless of what happens, get yourself together for this because you are going to get a chance. Your chance is coming."

"The train that is coming in the song speaks to a chance for redemption -- the long-sought chance to rise above racism, to stand apart from despair and any desire for retaliation -- an end to the cycle of pain," Williams adds.

Mayfield, who was living in Chicago at the time of the march, had grown up in the black church singing gospel. In a 1993 interview with NPR's Terry Gross, he said the song was a subconscious product of "the preachings of my grandmothers and most ministers when they reflect from the Bible."

The song became one of the first gospel crossover hits, while at the same time continuing a tradition of American folklore -- the train of salvation -- in the vein of Woody Guthrie and Johnny Cash's popular versions of "This Train's Bound For Glory." Mayfield sings about the same train stopping to pick up the faithful of all colors.

"I think it's a song that touches people..." says Peter Burns, the author of the biography Curtis Mayfield: People Never Give Up. "It is a song of faith really, a faith that transcends any racial barrier and welcomes everyone onto the train. The train that takes everyone to the promised land, really."

In fact, since its debut in 1965, "People Get Ready" has become a classic for black and white musicians. Bob Marley used the guitar riff and some of the lyrics in his reggae song "One Love." A montage in Williams' report includes versions by Rod Stewart, James Taylor, Eva Cassidy, Phil Collins and Paul Jackson Jr. Bruce Springsteen has quoted from "People Get Ready" as part of his concert performances in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Curtis Mayfield died in 1999. 'People Get Ready,' the song inspired by the March on Washington, lives on. It's idealism and optimism make it the ultimate crossover -- crossing not only racial barriers but generations," Williams says.

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/march40th/people.html








***************************

Is this a Herman Caid ad???

But I see I did manage to post the wrong youtube version. Here's the right one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8W9rPxxnP4&feature=related

My eyes are getting damp... darn allergies.