Can’t Feel at Home

This world is not my home

I. Earliest Publication

The origins of the song “This world is not my home” (“I can’t feel at home in this world anymore”) are unclear. It had appeared anonymously, text only, in Joyful Meeting in Glory Song Book No. 1 (1919), “Selected by Evangelist Bertha Davis, 693 Sisco St., Columbus, Ohio.” This early version contained five verses and a chorus. The copyright for the songbook was registered on 18 October 1919 for a term lasting 28 years, and it does not appear to have been renewed.

Another song called “This world is not my home” (“I have left the land of death and sin”) appeared in Living Water Songs No. 2 (1908), edited by John T. Benson. In that collection, the song was arranged by his wife, Dora Benson, and that version of the song was registered for copyright on 8 September 1908. The song was repeated in other Benson collections, including Glory Songs (ca. 1916), Soul Stirring Songs (ca. 1917), and Choice Collections (1925). It bears no resemblance to the song pictured above or below and should not be counted as being part of the same lineage.

II. Earliest Recordings

The song was first recorded in 1924 by a blues singer named Sam Jones of Cincinnati, who recorded under the stage name Stovepipe No. 1. He recorded “Lord don’t you know I have no friend like you” on 19 August 1924 in New York City for Columbia Records, released as Columbia 210-D. This was reissued on Document Records DOCD-5269, Stovepipe No. 1 & David Crockett, and on RST Records/Blues Documents BD-2019, Stovepipe No. 1 & David Crockett.

Stovepipe’s version is difficult to discern in some places, and he alternates between singing the words and playing his harmonica, but he outlines the following parts:

1. [V1] Well, come and beckon me / (to) heaven when I die

2. [C] Oh Lord don’t you know I have no friend like you

3. [V2] You try to [?] at night / [?]

4. [C] Oh Lord don’t you know I have no friend like you

The song was recorded twice in 1927, first by the Golden Echo Quartet of Nashville, Tennessee, for Columbia Records in New York City, 1 April 1927, released as Columbia 14572-D. The quartet consisted of Sam Thomas, G.R. O’Grady, Eugene Hall, and William Gillespie, and they performed the song unaccompanied. The structure of the song, which was clearly based on the same text as 1919, was as follows:

1. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

2. [V1] This world is not my home, I’m just passing by

3. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

4. [V2] Heaven’s expecting me and that’s one thing I know

5. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

6. [V3] Over in Beulah land, there is no dying there

7. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

8. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

This recording was reissued on Document Records DOCD-5539, Vocal Quartets: Complete Recorded Works, Vol. 3 (G: 1927–1936).

Another recording, “This world is not my home” by The Kentucky Thoroughbreds (Doc Roberts, Dick Parman, Ted Chestnut), made on 14 April 1927 in Chicago for Paramount and released as Paramount 3014-B, is a different song altogether and is not part of the same musical lineage. This can be heard on Paramount Old Time Recordings.

Later in 1927, the song was recorded for OKeh Records by Jessie May Hill and an unspecified pianist, 19 December 1927, in Chicago, Illinois, released as OKeh 8546. On the label, the song was credited to Hill, and underneath her name it said, “The Church of God in Christ.” Her version carried out thusly:

1. [V1] This world is not my home, I’m only passing by

2. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

3. [V2] Jesus is my Captain, he guides me every day

4. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

5. [V3] I won’t have long to wait, my work is almost done

6. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

7. [V4] Over in Beulah land, there ain’t no dying o’er there

8. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

9. [V5] Heaven’s expecting me and that’s one thing I know

10. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

Hill was able to accommodate five verses and choruses in under three minutes because her tempo was faster than the Golden Echo Quartet. Hill treated the melody with great freedom, but the shape of the expected melody can be heard in the pianist’s right hand. Hill registered a score for copyright on 10 May 1928 (Consolidated Music Publishing House, Chicago), and thus appears to be the first to enter a copyright for a score with music. Her copyright was renewed by Leeds Music Corp. on 17 May 1955 (sold to MCA, Inc., in 1964, which is now Universal Studios); it expires in 2024. A copy of this score could not be located for review. Hypothetically, her copyright would not cover any of the words published in 1919, but it could potentially cover the music.

The recording by Jessie May Hill was reissued on Document Records DOCD-5190, Gospel Classics 1927–1931.

III. The Carter Family

The song was brought to wider audiences through the recording, score, and performances by The Carter Family, consisting of Alvin Pleasant Carter (1891–1960), his wife Sara (1898–1979), and his brother’s wife, Maybelle (1909–1978), who was also Sara’s cousin. The Carters were home-grown musicians living in Maces Spring, Virginia, who had mostly sung and played for their own entertainment until 1927, when A.P. saw an advertisement for the Victor Talking Machine Company, seeking new acts through open auditions to be held in Bristol, Tennessee. On 1 August 1927, the group played for producer and talent scout Ralph Peer, who liked their sound and had them record four tracks. A few months later, the 78-rpm discs were released and sold well, so Peer invited them to another session, 9–10 May 1928, in Camden, NJ, where they recorded twelve tracks and signed a formal contract. Peer encouraged the Carters to find more original material—or at least songs not already under copyright, which meant they could draw more royalties that way:

If A.P. could continue to come up with new songs (or songs that could be “put over” as new), Peer would make sure Victor sold them. The more songs the Carters could come up with, the better for them all.[1]

A.P.’s new ambition in life became the quest for new material. His daughter Janette later recalled:

He was known in the Valley and in the area, and people would tell him if they heard somebody had a song, and he’d go see them. Or sometimes he’d just be driving by and stop and go up to a little house up in the hills to see if they had a song. It’s a wonder he didn’t get dog-bit. He’d just tell ’em who he was and that he was looking for songs. Sometimes he’d stay all night at their house.[2]

But A.P. wasn’t a trained musician and couldn’t transcribe music if he heard it, so he would mostly come home with pockets full of lyrics and what little he could remember of melodies. He would sometimes hum melodies to Sara and Maybelle until they caught on to it. According to their biographers, the process went something like this:

A.P. told Maybelle that every song should have a distinctive instrumental intro, so the audience could recognize it from the first chords, but other than that, he left the melodies to the women. Even when A.P. brought home sheet music for old parlor songs or long-forgotten pop tunes, it didn’t do Sara and Maybelle much good; neither one could read music. When A.P. brought home lyrics with no tune at all to work with, Sara and Maybelle would fashion the melody by ear, drawing heavily on the old fiddle songs they’d heard Uncle Mil Nickels or Ap Harris play over in Rich Valley—or even tinkering with a melody they’d already heard on a record.[3]

For a few years, he recruited a young black guitarist named Lesley Riddle to go out with him; Riddle had a better ear for music retention.

“He’d go ninety miles if he heard someone say that someone had an old song that hadn’t ever been recorded or didn’t have a copyright,” said Riddle. “One time he and I went way to the other side of Gate City and some old lady about ninety years old, and she had some music her grandmother had left her. We got a whole stack of that music and come back. Couldn't nobody understand it. Couldn't nobody read [music].”[4]

At some point, he evidently heard or acquired a version of “Can’t Feel at Home.” What exactly he found is impossible to determine, but their resulting version aligns closely with what had come before. They recorded the song on 26 May 1931 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and it was released as Victor 23569, also licensed for sale through the Montgomery Ward department store as M-4736-A. The copyright was registered on 25 August 1931 (renewed 27 August 1958), in which A.P. was falsely credited with writing the words and music, and the score was published in The Carter Family Album of Smokey Mountain Ballads (NY: Southern Music Pub. Co., 1935 | Fig. 2). On both the disc and the score, the song was credited solely to A.P. Carter.

Compared to the previous versions, the Carters’ score was structured as three strophic stanzas, with no separate refrain. A couple of their revisions are notable, especially in the first verse, where they altered the rhyme scheme to say “I’m just a-passing through . . . are all beyond the blue,” and in the second verse, where they exchanged “Beulah land” for “glory land.” Their recording was more extensive:

1. [V1] This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through

2. [V2] Over in glory land, there is no dying there

3. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

4. [V3] Heaven’s expecting me, that’s one thing I know

5. [V4] Oh I have a loving mother over in glory land

6. [C] Oh Lord, you know I have no friend like you

The fourth verse appears to have been newly written by the Carters. Their copyright, which expires in 2027, would only cover their three-part voicing over a bass line, plus the changes they made to the lyrics and melody when compared against the previous printed versions (at the time, recordings on 78-rpm discs did not count as copyrightable, published sources), and their copyright would only cover the lyrics they printed in the score, not verses 3 and 4 on the record.

III. Albert Brumley & Stamps-Baxter

A few years after the Carters recorded their version, Albert Brumley (1905–1977)—better known as the composer of “I’ll Fly Away”—was working as a staff composer/arranger for the Stamps-Baxter Company. His arrangement of “This world is not my home” appeared in Virgil O. Stamps’ Radio Song Album (Dallas: Stamps-Baxter, 1937). The collection was registered for copyright on 1 September 1937 (renewed 1 September 1964), and thus is valid until 2033 (Stamps-Baxter was bought by Zondervan in 1974).

Compared to what the Carters had been singing, Brumley’s first three verses are practically identical to the Carters’ 1, 3, and 4, and the refrain (not shown above), and Brumley’s last verse is adapted from the Carters’ second. The melody of the refrain is substantially the same as in the verses, except it starts on a higher note. The melody has a different shape in some places, even though the chord structure is functionally the same as in previous versions. In other words, this version is heavily derivative of what came before it, so the copyright—if it has any merit at all—would only apply to the variations or to Brumley’s four-part voicing.

Although Virgil Stamps and his Stamps Quartet recorded a few 78s, no recordings of this song have been documented. Brumley’s arrangement has been reprinted in several other hymnals and songbooks.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
4 February 2022

Footnotes:

1. Mark Zwonitzer & Charles Hirshberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? The Carter Family and Their Legacy in American Music (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 110.

2. Zwonitzer & Hirshberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? (2002), p. 121.

3. Zwonitzer & Hirshberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? (2002), p. 122.

4. Zwonitzer & Hirshberg, Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? (2002), p. 130.

Related Resources:

Discography of American Historical Recordings, University of California Santa Barbara: UCSB

“Can’t Feel at Home,” Montgomery Ward M-4736-A, 78-rpm (1931): Archive.org

“This world is not my home,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/this_world_is_not_my_home_im_just_a

Robert M.W. Dixon, et al., Blues and Gospel Records, 1890–1943 (Oxford: University Press, 1997).

Tony Russell, Country Music Records: A Discography, 1921–1942 (Oxford: University Press, 2008).