Nothing But The Blood: A Song History

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"Nothing But the Blood" is one of the gospel songs for which a single writer supplied both text and tune: the Baptist minister Robert Lowry (1826–1899), whom Hymnary.org credits with the words and music in 1876.[1] A Philadelphia native, Lowry held pastorates in Pennsylvania, New York City and Brooklyn before taking a church in Plainfield, New Jersey, the town where he later died.[2] The melody is known as PLAINFIELD, a name Hymnary.org's commentary ties to the town where he was probably living when he wrote it.[1] The tune is set in 7.8.7.8 meter with a refrain.[3] Church-music scholar C. Michael Hawn describes stanzas that work as call and response, built from one- and two-syllable words and carried by "sturdy, almost martial rhythms," while Hymnary.org notes a pentatonic melody of narrow range that congregations find easy to pick up.[4][1]

Wood engraving of a congregation gathered at the porch of a church

Winslow Homer, Thanksgiving Day - The Church Porch, wood engraving, 1865. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

Biglow & Main chose Lowry as editor of its Sunday-school books, and he frequently partnered with William Howard Doane on such collections.[2][4] According to Hawn, the hymn first appeared in one of those joint books, Gospel Music, with a verse from Hebrews 9:22 printed above it.[4] Hawn dates that book to 1876, while the copy catalogued by Hymnary.org and the Internet Archive bears an 1877 date.[4][5][6] Lowry wrote six stanzas, but most hymnals now print only the first four.[1][4] Hymnary.org indexes the text in roughly 670 hymnals.[1]

The hymn has also reached contemporary worship: Hawn notes that the Christian songwriter Matt Redman worked it into a song of his own and that the Australian group Hillsong United performs a popular version.[4] Among mountain dulcimer players, it appears in Stephen Seifert's Join the Jam Gospel Edition, which arranges 68 hymns and gospel songs in DAD tuning.[7]

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Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus".
  2. Hymnary.org: "Robert Lowry".
  3. Hymnary.org: "PLAINFIELD (Lowry)".
  4. Discipleship Ministries (C. Michael Hawn): "History of Hymns: Nothing but the Blood".
  5. Hymnary.org: "Gospel Music: A Choice Collection of Hymns and Melodies New and Old".
  6. Internet Archive: "Gospel Music: A Choice Collection of Hymns and Melodies New and Old".
  7. Stephen Seifert: "Join the Jam Gospel Edition".