Look How This World Has Made A Change: A Song History

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The Carter Family recorded "Look How This World Has Made a Change" in New York for Decca on June 17, 1937, and the record came out as Decca 5452.[1] The Discography of American Historical Recordings, drawing on Michel Ruppli's Decca discography, has Sara Carter singing lead and playing autoharp and guitar, Maybelle Carter on guitar and harmony, and A. P. Carter taking the bass part.[1] Hymnary.org lists a similarly titled song, "Look How This World Made a Change," credited to John B. Vaughan (1862–1918) and printed in songbooks from 1912 onward, but the sources consulted here don't establish whether it is the same song the Carters recorded.[2]

Faded photograph of a man and a woman seated among rocks on a mountainside

Thomas Eakins, William H. Macdowell and Margaret Eakins in Saltville (or Clinch Mountain), Virginia, platinum print, 1880–82. A photograph from southwest Virginia, the Carter Family's home region, taken long before their time; it has no connection to the song.

It is among the 35 Carter Family songs that Elwood Donnelly gathered for Such Singing You Will Hear, where it is listed in DAD tuning, and the book's instructions and notes address the mountain dulcimer player, the backup musician and the singer.[3]

Our book that contains the song "Look How This World Has Made A Change"

Sources

  1. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Decca matrix 62297. Look how this world has made a change / Carter Family".
  2. Hymnary.org: "Look How This World Made a Change".
  3. Elwood Donnelly: "Such Singing You Will Hear: 35 Songs Of The Carter Family".
  4. Image: Thomas Eakins, William H. Macdowell and Margaret Eakins in Saltville (or Clinch Mountain), Virginia, platinum print, 1880–82. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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