Why don’t we tell the stories that accompany the hymns we sing? Virtually every song has a story to accompany it. So many hymns emerge out of pain and intense struggle. Once you know the story behind the hymn “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” you’ll never sing it the same way again.
Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993) was a well-known jazz and blues arranger and singer who turned his interest to Black gospel music. He travelled to St. Louis in 1932 to sing at a large revival meeting while his wife, Nettie, eight months pregnant, stayed behind in Chicago. After Thomas finished singing, he was handed a telegram that read, “Your wife just died.” He rushed home only to find that his newborn son had also died that same evening. “I felt God had done me an injustice,” Thomas wrote later, “I didn’t want to serve him anymore or write gospel songs.” OK, I’ve never said it quite that way, but I’ve felt it sometimes.”
A week later, Thomas sat down at the piano and began to improvise on an old Sunday School tune. The words began to flow as he poured out his lament to God in song. He composed a song that he shared with the music director of Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church. The next Sunday, the choir sang “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” In Thomas’s words, it “tore up the church.” The pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. fell in love with the song. So did his famous son, at whose funeral it was sung.