History of Hymns: 'Give Me That Old-Time Religion'

"Give Me That Old-Time Religion (Old-Time Religion)"
African American Spiritual
Songs of Zion, 89

Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
Give me that old time religion,
It’s good enough for me.

The earliest print version of the song “Old Time Religion” appeared in publications linked to the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a renowned African American a cappella ensemble. These were Gustavus D. Pike’s The Jubilee Singers and their campaign for twenty thousand dollars (Boston, 1873) and J.B.T. Marsh’s The Story of the Jubilee Singers with their songs (Boston, 1880). The song "This Old Time Religion" contains four stanzas.

This spiritual, deeply rooted in the African American culture, holds significant influence in white southern gospel revival culture and Black gatherings. Carlon R. Young notes that it is “a traditional folk song of the nineteenth-century USA rural South” and that the melody and words of “Old Time Religion” are often interchanged with a variant of an earlier spiritual, “Tis the Old Ship of Zion,” with roots in the early nineteenth century (Young, 1993, p. 665). This interchangeability is due to the virtually identical melodies of the two songs. George Pullen Jackson recorded it from memory in the early twentieth century "at a meeting of both negroes and whites" (Jackson, 1937, p. 218). The United Methodist Hymnal (1989) and The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal (1999) indicate that “Old Time Religion” may be an alternate refrain for ''Tis that old ship of Zion.” Though the linking of the two songs does not appear in other hymnals, singers likely conflated the two in oral practice due to the virtually identical melodies.

The spiritual also appeared in white gospel convention collections in the late nineteenth century. The earliest hymnal to include “Old Time Religion” in Hymnary.org is Heavenly Highways (Rev. Ed.) (1886). The melody follows the general shape of the familiar version, though the rhythm is identical to later settings. The text of the refrain is:

‘Tis that old time religion,
The old time religion,
The old time religion,
Its [sic] good enough for me.

Stanzas follow the same melody:

1. It is good for the mourner . . . And its good enough for me.
2. It was good for Paul and Silas . . . And its good enough for me.
3. It will carry you home to heaven . . . And its good enough for me.
4. It brought me out of bondage . . . And its good enough for me.
5. It is good when you are in trouble . . . And its good enough for me.

Crowning Glory, No. 2 (Chicago, 1890), edited by P.P. Bilhorn (1865–1936), provides its own arrangement of the more commonly known melody, but offers some variant stanzas:

1. It was good for our fathers,
   It was good for our mothers,
   It was good for our brothers,
   And 'tis good enough for me.
2. Makes me love everybody . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
3. It will save a poor, lost sinner . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
4. It was good for the prophet Daniel . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
5. It was good for Paul and Silas . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
6. It will do when we are dying . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
7. It will take us home to heaven . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.

Charles D. Tillman (1861–1943), an evangelistic singer who established a church music publishing company in Atlanta, promoted the spiritual extensively in his many collections. Like others in this era, Tillman was adept at adapting gospel songs from other sources. His encounter with the spiritual in 1889 marked a significant moment in the history of gospel music, as it paved the way for the spiritual’s extensive influence on the genre.

Though Reynolds was unaware of the spiritual’s earlier appearance in Jubilee Singers’ publications and several gospel convention collections, he established how the spiritual entered the white gospel repertoire. “Old Time Religion” appeared in Charlie Tillman’s The Revival (1891) under his copyright with nine stanzas:

1. It was good for our mothers . . . It’s good enough for me.
2. Makes me love everybody . . . It’s good enough for me.
3. It has sav-ed our fathers . . . It’s good enough for me.
4. It was good for the Prophet Daniel . . . It’s good enough for me.
5. It was good for the Hebrew Children . . . It’s good enough for me.
6. It was tried in the fiery furnace . . . It’s good enough for me.
7. It was good for Paul and Silas . . . It’s good enough for me.
8. It will do when I am dying . . . It’s good enough for me.
9. It will take us all to heaven . . . It’s good enough for me.

For several decades, numerous editors arranged the music for their collections, probably to avoid Tillman’s questionable copyright, though most cited his nine stanzas. Charles M. Alexander (1867–1920), a well-known revival song leader at the turn of the twentieth century, is credited with a seven-stanza version in many collections with the note, “As Sung by Chas. M. Alexander.” His version is distinctive for its added stanza, “Makes me love the good old Bible” (The World Revival Songs and Hymns, 1906).

African American arrangers followed these convention collections from white publishers in the 1920s. Edward Hammond Boatner (1898–1981) included “Old-Time Religion” in his Spirituals Triumphant Old and New (1927). The rhythm is identical, but Dr. A.M. Townsend’s arrangement shifts the meter from 2/4 to 4/4 and doubles the note values, suggesting the African American community practiced a more relaxed tempo. A remastered digitalized recording by the Tuskegee Institute Singers in 1915 indicates a statelier tempo than would have taken place in white revivals. (“The Old Time Religion,” Tuskegee Institute: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Old_Time_Religion_-_Tuskegee_Institute_Singers.flac.) His stanzas are similar to the earlier versions above with some variations:

1. It was good for our mothers . . . It is good enough for me.
2. It has saved our fathers . . . It is good enough for me.
3. It was tried in the fiery furnace . . . It is good enough for me.
4. It will do when you are dying . . . It is good enough for me.
5. Makes me love everybody . . . It is good enough for me.
6. It will take me home to heaven . . . It is good enough for me.

John Rosamund Johnson (1873–1954) provides a solo arrangement in Volume 1 of his Book of American Negro Spirituals (1925) in dialect:

Gimme dat ol’-time religion . . . It’s good enough for me.
'Jus gimme dat ol’ time religion . . . It’s good enough for me.

The two stanzas follow:

1. It was good for de Hebrew children . . . An it’s good enough for me.
2. It will do when the world’s on fiah . . . An it’s good enough for me.

Over 300 collections include some variant of this spiritual. Because of its repetitive pattern, publishers easily adapted the song to their audience. For example, Rescue Songs (New York, 1893), a collection prepared for rescue missions in urban areas, included these stanzas as well as several traditional ones:

It will lighten every burden . . . And 'tis good enough for me.
It will make me leave off drinking . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.
It will sanctify me wholly . . . And ‘tis good enough for me.

Though the many versions of the spiritual do not mention Jesus, the variants include familiar tropes found in other spirituals, including naming family members (father, mother) and significant biblical figures, especially those who experienced deliverance (Paul, Silas, Daniel, Hebrew children), and passage from this life to the next. The deeper meaning depends on the community that sings the spiritual. William B. McClain offers this interpretation of the spiritual within the African American community:

The narrative from Carrie Hudson summarizes how enslaved African Americans may have understood: “I jined de church ‘cause I got ‘ligion and I knows the good Lord done forgive my sins. Everybody ought to git ‘ligion and hold it and jine the church” (Guenther, 2016, p. 384).

The white revival context also found meaning in these themes, but music in revivals primarily supported evangelism—saving the lost—rather than sustaining and admonishing those from the African diaspora. This song took on a polemical tone for evangelicals in the later twentieth century, especially Southern Baptists, who understood “old-time religion” to reflect biblical inerrancy, conservative cultural values, and a suspicion of modern methods of biblical criticism and interpretation.

The tune, usually called OLD TIME RELIGION, has been adapted to many other texts. In addition to “Tis the old ship of Zion,” the melody also appears in the temperance collection Songs of the New Crusade (1916), with the refrain, “I’m for state-wide prohibition.” White gospel song composers borrowed the key phrase— “Old-Time Religion”—and incorporated it into their hymns. Numerous Black and white gospel singers recorded “Old-Time Religion,” attesting to its popularity and versatility. Black ensembles included the Pace Jubilee Singers (1928–1929), The Caravans (1954), the Famous Ward Singers (1959), a women’s quintet, and Mahalia Jackson (1962). White folk singers and gospel artists include Johnny Cash (1971), Pete Seeger (1980), Dolly Parton (1999), and Willie Nelson (2013). Several films feature the song, most prominently Inherit the Wind (1960).

The spiritual survives today primarily in African American collections, including African American Heritage Hymnal(2001), Lead Me, Guide Me (2^nd ed.) (2012), Songs of Zion (1981), The A.M.E. Zion Hymnal (1999), The New National Baptist Hymnal (21^st Century Ed.) (2001), Total Praise (2001), and Yes, Lord! (1982). Songs of Zionpreserves the text in dialect.

SOURCES:

Eileen Guenther, In Their Own Words: Slave Life and the Power of the Spirituals (St. Louis: MorningStar Music Publishers, 2016).

George Pullen Jackson, Spiritual Folk-Songs of Early America (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1937).

William B. McClain, Come Sunday: The Liturgy of Zion—A Companion to Songs of Zion (Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1991).

William J. Reynolds, Hymns of Our Faith (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1964).

Carlton R. Young, Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993).