How Can I Keep from Singing

with
ENDLESS SONG

I. Authorship and History

This hymn was first printed in the 27 August 1868 issue of the New York Observer, given in three stanzas of eight lines, headed “For the New York Observer,” titled “Always Rejoicing,” and credited to Pauline T. Every stanza ends with the question, “How can I keep from singing?”

This hymn was reprinted in other papers, using the same title, including The Bangor [Maine] Daily Whig and Courier (23 September 1868), uncredited, The Brooklyn Daily Times (6 October 1868), uncredited, The Christian Pioneer (March 1869), uncredited, and Cottage Visitor [Hendersonville, NC] (29 October 1869), credited to the Observer. The attribution of this text to Pauline T. seems to have never been reprinted in any other periodical or early source, but a sonnet by her titled “Full Assurance” was given in the New York Observer on 15 October 1868. Nothing more of Pauline T. is known.

In 1869, the hymn was included in Bright Jewels for the Sunday School (NY: Biglow & Main | Fig. 2), edited by Robert Lowry (1826–1899), pastor of Hanson Place Baptist Church in Brooklyn, NY. The way his initials were placed in the upper-right corner, this could either indicate his claim on the tune only, or on the text and tune together. A similar presentation of text and tune was given in Chautauqua Carols (1878), no. 91, with only Lowry’s name. The picture becomes more clear in another collection Lowry edited, the Gospel Hymn and Tune Book (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1879). In that collection, the Index of First Lines included the names of all the text authors; on the line for “My life flows on in endless song,” the authorship was left blank. The music was credited to Lowry. Therefore, Lowry (or William Doane, his co-editor) either didn’t know the name of the author, or he was protecting someone’s anonymity. The former seems more likely.

Curiously, when the song was published in Winnowed Hymns (NY: Biglow & Main, 1873), edited by C.C. McCabe and D.T. Macfarlane, it was credited to F.J. Hartley. This attribution was reprinted in other collections, including Royal Songs (1875, with a tune by S.J. Vail), Calvary Songs (1875), Beulah Songs (1879), Songs of Joy and Gladness (1885), Hymns of Consecration and Faith (1902), and Gospel Carols (1905). But who is F.J. Hartley? An announcement in The Buffalo Commercial, 31 May 1873, page 2, reads:

Sunday School Anniversary week this year has been one of special interest, from the presence of a deputation from the London S.S. Union, Mr. F.J. Hartley, one of the Secretaries, who has been received with open arms by the Sunday-School men of New York. Having heard, he says, that America is the land, par excellence, of Sunday Schools, where the art of popular religious education, as well as secular, is in advance of all the world, he has come over, at the urgent and long-urged desire of his friends and the friends of Sunday Schools in England, to investigate the claim with his own senses and to see what can be learned of us and carried back for the benefit of the cause in the mother country.

If this is the same Hartley, his case for authorship is highly unlikely. His arrival in the U.S. postdates the earliest printing of the text, so this attribution would presume he sent the text to the New York Observer or to Pauline T. or to Robert Lowry to be published in the U.S. rather than a British publication, and his name was willfully obscured. F.J. Hartley is not known to have written other hymns. Carl Daw argued, “it seems more likely that he was somehow involved in making the text available to the respective editors than that he was the actual author.[1]

The common identification of the song as a Quaker hymn was popularized by folk singer Pete Seeger (1919–2014), who “learned it in 1956 from a lady who had it from a Quaker grandmother in North Carolina.”[2] The woman from whom he learned the song was Doris Plenn, and she is credited with writing a new stanza, “When tyrants tremble, sick with fear,” etc. Seeger published the text and Lowry’s tune (uncredited) in the folk-song journal Sing Out, vol. 7, no. 1 (Spring 1957), and he recorded the song on his album In Concert: I Can See a New Day (Columbia Records, 1964).

Variations of this song sometimes include rhythmic changes, such as being arranged in duple meter, sometimes with syncopations. The song is sometimes restructured to have a refrain; this seems to date as early as the Wesleyan Methodist Sacred Hymns and Tunes (1902). A tune written by Ira Sankey was included in Gospel Hymns No. 4 (1881). The text has also been paired with MATERNA.

II. Analysis

The main question of the song, “How can I keep from singing?,” evokes Jesus’ admonition to the Pharisees, “I tell you that if these [disciples] should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out” (Lk. 19:40), or perhaps the words of the psalmist, “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Ps. 34:1) That is to say, praise is a natural outpouring of a grateful soul. The first stanza also resembles the hopefulness of Lamentations 3:22–24; in spite of great trials, our hope is renewed. The original title, “Always rejoicing,” is possibly an allusion to 2 Corinthians 6:10. The anticipation of a new creation (1.4) could either be in reference to a spiritual renewal (2 Cor. 5:17), or to the new heaven and new earth promised in Isaiah 65:17 and Revelation 21:1.

The second stanza grounds the hymn in the Christian faith. The first four lines are structured in a question-and-answer format, in which the question poses a challenge, and the answer offers hope. Hope comes from a living Savior (1 Tim. 4:10) who gives songs in the night (Job 35:10, Ps. 77:6). Lines 5 and 6 recall passages like Isa. 41:0, Job 5:21–24, or Psalm 46. In the Bible, God is frequently affirmed as Lord or king of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:22, Josh. 2:11, Isa. 37:16, 66:1, Acts 7:49, 17:24).

Stanza 3 echoes Psalm 121 (“I will lift up my eyes to the hills,” etc.). The third line carries the sense of Proverbs 3:5–6. The peace of Christ is mentioned in Ephesians 2:14, Philippians 4:7, and elsewhere.

Lutheran scholar Paul Westermeyer described the perspective of the hymn, and why the word “Christ” is necessary:

Though cast in the first-person singular, it has the character of anonymity as, in the medieval sense of the music of the spheres, the individual joins the song that transcends earth’s lamentations. In the refrain “Christ” has sometimes been changed to “love.” “Christ” . . . is the original word and gives the hymn its focus and meaning. It is not some generalized airy love that is being referenced, but God in Christ who is “Lord of heaven and earth.”[3]

Reformed editor Joyce Borger said of the song:

While the song testifies that we are in God’s hands, it does not ignore the fact that on earth we still lament; we face tumult and strife. Yet in the midst of the laments, the underpinning of our lives is a different tune—a peaceful, hope-filled song of faith.[4]

One reason why the Quaker attribution has been accepted by many people is likely because Lowry’s tune is pentatonic, meaning it has a simple, timeless quality. Rhythmic (especially syncopated) versions of the tune detract from the steady, flowing shape of the original melody.

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
22 July 2024

Footnotes:

1. Carl P. Daw Jr., “My life flows on,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), p. 780.

2. Albert B. Friedman, “Folk Song,” Western Folklore, vol. 25, no. 4 (Oct. 1966), p. 271; Seeger’s 1964 album cover says, “Doris Plenn learned this remarkable hymn from her Quaker grandmother and sang it for Pete”; see also Sing Out (1957), p. 14.

3. Paul Westermeyer, “My life flows on in endless song,” Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2010), p. 625.

4. Joyce Borger, “How Can I Keep from Singing,” Reformed Worship, no. 108 (June 2013): https://www.reformedworship.org/article/june-2013/how-can-i-keep-singing

Related Resources:

John Julian, “Robert Lowry,” A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: J. Murray, 1892), p. 699: HathiTrust

“How Can I Keep from Singing,” Sing Out, vol. 7, no. 1 (Spring 1957), pp. 14–15: Archive.org

Robert L. Anderson, “My life flows on in endless song,” The New Century Hymnal Companion, ed. Kristen L. Forman (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 1998), p. 449.

Marilyn Kay Stulken, “My life flows on in endless song,” With One Voice: Reference Companion (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2000), pp. 120–121.

Wayne S. Walker, “How Can I Keep from Singing,” Hymn Studies Blog (11 May 2021):
https://hymnstudiesblog.wordpress.com/2021/05/11/how-can-i-keep-from-singing/

“How Can I Keep from Singing,” Hymnary.org:
https://hymnary.org/text/my_life_flows_on_in_endless_song_above