Sunshine In My Soul: A Song History

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"Sunshine In My Soul," also printed as "Sunshine in the Soul," joins words by Eliza Edmunds Hewitt to a tune by John R. Sweney.[1] Hewitt, born in Philadelphia in 1851, went into teaching after high school until a spinal illness confined her at home for years, and during her recovery she began writing poems for the primary department of her church.[1] Her verse caught the notice of Sweney, who had at one time been chorister there.[2] By the time of a 1916 biographical sketch, she was superintendent of the primary department at Calvin Presbyterian Church.[2] Sweney, born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1837, led a Union regimental band through the Civil War, became professor of music at the Pennsylvania Military Academy, and edited or co-edited some sixty song collections, many of them with William J. Kirkpatrick.[3]

Etched landscape of a broad plain under a large sky, with light breaking through the clouds onto a distant hill

Charles-François Daubigny, A Burst of Sunlight, etching, 1860. Sunlight breaking over open country, shown for the title; the etching has no connection to the hymn.

Hymnary.org dates Hewitt's text to 1887 and, drawing on the Cyber Hymnal, names Glad Hallelujahs, a Kirkpatrick and Sweney collection of that year, as its source.[1] That book, a 170-page volume of sacred songs, was issued in Philadelphia by Thomas T. Tasker.[4] Sweney's melody, known as SUNSHINE, is in an irregular meter with a refrain, and the text has been indexed in more than 400 hymnals, with Dutch and Spanish translations also on record.[1] Charles Gabriel's 1916 sketch, reproduced by the Hymnology Archive, ranks it among Hewitt's most popular hymns and says it "circled the globe," with word of its use reaching her in return.[2] The hymnal of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, for one, prints it as number 227.[5]

Dulcimer players can find it in Larry Conger's Hymns Of Faith Tab Book, published by Fingers Of Steel, which sets it in DAD tuning with a capo at the third fret and also includes "Abide With Me" and "Be Thou My Vision."[6]

Our book that contains the song "Sunshine In My Soul"

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "There is sunshine in my soul today".
  2. Hymnology Archive: "Eliza Edmunds Hewitt".
  3. Hymnary.org: "John R. Sweney".
  4. Princeton Theological Seminary Theological Commons: "Glad hallelujahs, replete with sacred songs".
  5. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today".
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns Of Faith Tab Book".
  7. Image: Charles-François Daubigny, A Burst of Sunlight, etching, 1860. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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