This World Is Not My Home: A Song History

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"This World Is Not My Home" is a gospel song of unknown authorship; the earliest publication Hymnology Archive identifies is an unsigned, text-only printing in Joyful Meeting in Glory Song Book No. 1 (1919), marked as selected by Evangelist Bertha Davis of Columbus, Ohio.[1] The article's author, Chris Fenner, calls the song's origins unclear and keeps it apart from an unrelated song of the same name in Living Water Songs No. 2 (1908), a book edited by John T. Benson.[1] Hymnary.org indexes the text, under the heading "I Can't Feel At Home Any More," in 92 hymnals and ties it to Hebrews 11:13 and 13:14 and Matthew 6:20.[2] The Traditional Ballad Index treats it less as one fixed song than as a cluster whose verses drift freely among related pieces.[3]

A traveler in a hat sitting by trees at the roadside, a mountain landscape behind

Alphonse Legros, Rest of the Traveler, drypoint, c. 1857–1911. A traveler resting by the roadside, shown as a nod to the song's title; the print has no connection to the song.

Recordings followed in the 1920s: the Ballad Index dates its earliest example to a 1924 Columbia side by Stove Pipe No. 1 and lists 1927 recordings by the Golden Echo Quartet and Jessie May Hill.[3] Fenner notes that Hill's OKeh label credited the song to her, with the Church of God in Christ named beneath her, and that the score she registered in 1928 appears to be the first copyright entered for the song with music.[1] The Carter Family (A. P., Sara and Maybelle Carter) cut it as "Can't Feel at Home" in Charlotte, North Carolina, on May 26, 1931, with Ralph Peer supervising; Victor issued it as 23569, and its ledgers list A. P. Carter as arranger.[4] When the song's copyright was registered that August, Fenner writes, A. P. was wrongly credited with both words and music.[1] Through the 1930s the Ballad Index logs further versions by J. E. Mainer's Mountaineers, the Prairie Ramblers and the Monroe Brothers, among others.[3]

Albert E. Brumley, a staff composer and arranger for the Stamps-Baxter company, published an arrangement in a 1937 Stamps-Baxter collection, and Fenner finds its first three verses nearly identical to three of the Carters' verses.[1] Hymnary.org credits Brumley as arranger, dates his arrangement to 1937 and counts it in 74 hymnals.[5] The Ballad Index cross-references the song with "I Ain't Got No Home," citing shared structure, words and tune.[3] Maureen Sellers arranges "This World Is Not My Home" in DAD tuning for Simply Gospel, Book One, her Fingers Of Steel gathering of two dozen gospel songs, sold as a complete PDF with a separate file for each song.[6]

Our book that contains the song "This World Is Not My Home"

Sources

  1. Hymnology Archive: "This World Is Not My Home".
  2. Hymnary.org: "I Can't Feel At Home Any More".
  3. The Traditional Ballad Index: "This World Is Not My Home (I)".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-69351. Can't feel at home / Carter Family".
  5. Hymnary.org: "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passin through" (tune).
  6. Fingers Of Steel: "Maureen Sellers, Simply Gospel, Book One".
  7. Image: Alphonse Legros, Rest of the Traveler, drypoint, c. 1857–1911. The Cleveland Museum of Art.

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