Life's Railway To Heaven: A Song History

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"Life's Railway to Heaven" pairs words by M. E. Abbey, an Atlanta Baptist minister, with music by Charlie D. Tillman, the Atlanta gospel songwriter and songbook publisher.[1] Tillman set the text around 1890 and printed it in his collection The Revival, where it carried a dedication to railroad men;[2] sources differ on whether that first appearance came in 1890 or 1891.[3] Late in life Tillman recalled the elderly preacher arriving with a poem and said that "the melody came quickly."[3] The song works a single conceit from start to finish, picturing the Christian life as a train run along a dangerous mountain line, with the believer as an engineer who must stay alert and faithful until the journey's end.

Colour photochrom of two Denver & Rio Grande narrow-gauge engines pulling a train along a steep rock ledge above the Animas River

William Henry Jackson / Detroit Publishing Co., Canyon of the Rio las Animas, Colorado, photochrom, 1905. Library of Congress. No known restrictions.

Abbey's poem may not have been entirely new. One hymnology study suggests it draws on "The Faithful Engineer" by Will S. Hays, which appeared in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen's magazine in 1886 and which Hays later republished under a different title.[3] Some hymnals have instead named the Latter-day Saint poet Eliza R. Snow as author, but the Cyber Hymnal reports finding no evidence for that attribution,[2] and the same study traces the mix-up to a separate Latter-day Saint hymn, credited to Snow, that borrows Tillman's tune and Abbey's refrain.[3] Tillman's own Atlanta company issued the song in sheet-music form in 1893,[4] and Hymnary.org now counts it in well over a hundred hymnals.[5]

By 1924 the song was on record: Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Swagerty cut it for OKeh in April 1924,[6] and a Columbia disc from the same year pairs it with "The Old Rugged Cross" in performances by Homer Rodeheaver and Virginia Asher.[7] Tillman, who performed on early Atlanta radio, lies in Westview Cemetery under a monument engraved with a line of its words and music.[1] Later country artists including Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Patsy Cline and Linda Ronstadt have recorded it,[2] and it remains a staple for country and bluegrass performers.[1] Mountain dulcimer players will find it among the hymns in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam: Gospel Edition.[8]

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Sources

  1. New Georgia Encyclopedia: "Charlie D. Tillman (1861-1943)".
  2. The Cyber Hymnal (Hymntime): "Life's Railway to Heaven".
  3. LDS Hymnology: "M. E. Abbey".
  4. Johns Hopkins University, Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection: "Charlie D. Tillman".
  5. Hymnary.org: "Life's Railway to Heaven".
  6. 78discography.com: "OKeh 78rpm Numerical Listing Discography: 40000 - 40500".
  7. Smithsonian National Museum of American History: "Old Rugged Cross, The; Life's Railway To Heaven".
  8. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam Gospel Edition".