The Byrds' "I Am a Pilgrim"

A couple years ago, I wrote a post about the Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo in which I mentioned some Biblical references in "I Am a Pilgrim."  I wrote that the lines "If I can just touch the hem of His garment, good Lord / Then I'd know He'd take me home" reference the woman "healed from a discharge of blood after touching only the fringe of Jesus' garment" recounted in Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8.

Recently, though, I read part of Matthew 14 and found an-other passage that could just as well be the referent for those lines.  After feeding the five thousand and walking on the water, Jesus (with His disciples) "came to land at Gennesaret.  And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment.  And as many as touched it were made well" (Matthew 14:34-36).  There's a parallel account in Mark 6:53-56.

Where both of these Scriptural accounts deal with healing rather than - as it is in "I Am a Pilgrim" - being taken home (that is, taken to Heaven, "that yonder city... not made by hand... Over on that other shore"), they do both mention "touch[ing] the fringe of his garment," which is also what's in the song.

The Byrds' Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Since 20 January (the 50th anniversary of their first studio session on 20 January 1965), I've been reading Christopher Hjort's So You Want to Be a Rock 'n' Roll Star: The Byrds Day-by-Day 1965-1973.  A month or two ago, I reached August 1968, when Sweetheart of the Rodeo was released (on 30 August according to Hjort and the liner notes of my CD reissue).  It's probably my favorite Byrds album (although I've heard only the first six so far), so after reading about it, I listened to it a few times and found a few interesting things.

"I Am a Pilgrim"

I'm surprised I didn't realize this earlier, but there are two Biblical stories mentioned in the lyrics.

"I’m going down to the River of Jordan / Just to bathe my wearisome soul" is a reference to Naaman in the Old Testament.  In 2 Kings 5, the prophet Elisha tells Naaman to dip himself in the Jordan River seven times to be cured of his leprosy.

The other reference is in the lines "If I can just touch the hem of His garment, good Lord / Then I’d know He’d take me home."  Recounted in three different books of the New Testament (Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8), a woman is healed from a discharge of blood after touching only the fringe of Jesus' garment.

(I feel it's also worth mentioning that last September I wrote about some similarities between "I Am a Pilgrim" and "Wayfaring Stranger" as part of my Collection Audit project.)

"The Christian Life"

The CD version I have of Sweetheart of the Rodeo includes bonus tracks, one of which is a rehearsal of "The Christian Life."  After listening to both, I discovered that the two versions flip the first line of the two verses.  In the version on the final album, the first verse starts with "My buddies tell me that I should have waited" and the second with "My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus," but in the other version, the first verse starts with "My buddies shun me since I turned to Jesus" and the second with "My buddies tell me that I should have waited."

In both versions, there seems to be a discrepancy between the lead and backing vocals during the line "For what is a friend who'd want you to fall."  The lead vocals seem to have "who'd want" where the backing vocals have "who wants."

"You're Still on My Mind"

Lately, I've been really interested in melismas that add meaning to the lyric.  "You're Still on My Mind" has some of them with the "heart" in the line "An empty bottle, a broken heart, and you’re still on my mind" that ends each verse.  Where "heart" would normally have only one syllable, it has two here, so it sounds "broken."  Oddly, though, that melisma isn't present in every verse.  It's in the first verse and the repeated line in the third verse.  In the rehearsal version (included as a bonus track), it's in the second verse and that repeated line in the third verse.

"You Got a Reputation" [Bonus Track]

Like the melismas on "heart" in "You're Still on My Mind," there are some interesting melismas on "down" in a few of the various "You’re just tearin’ your own reputation down" lines.  They're slight, but some of those "down"s have multiple syllables, and later syllables are at a lower pitch than earlier ones.  So the word "down" is falling, pitch-wise.