| "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single byBlind Willie Johnson | |
| Released | April 20, 1928[1] |
| Recorded | December 3, 1927[2] |
| Genre | Gospel blues |
| Length | 3:21 |
| Label | Columbia |
| Songwriter | Blind Willie Johnson |
"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground"[note 1] is agospel blues song written and performed by American musicianBlind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taughtbottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on theVoyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films.
Born in 1897, Johnson taught himself how to play guitar and dedicated his life to blues and gospel music, playing for people on street corners and in mission halls.Columbia Records had a field unit that traveled to smaller towns to record local talent. Johnson recorded 30 songs for them at five sessions between 1927 and 1930. Among the first of these was "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground".[2]
.jpg)
The song's title is borrowed from ahymn that was popular in the 19h centuryAmerican South withfasola singers. “Gethsemane”, written by English clergymanThomas Haweis in 1792, begins with the lines “Dark was the night, and cold the ground / Where Jesus prostrate laid.”[3] Music historian Mark Humphrey describes Johnson's composition as an impressionistic rendition of “lining out”, acall-and-response style of singing hymns that is common in southernAfrican-American churches.[3][4][5]
"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is three minutes and 21 seconds of Johnson's unique guitar playing inopenD tuning for slide. By most accounts, Johnson substituted a knife or penknife for the bottleneck.[6] His melancholy, gravel-throated humming of the guitar part creates the impression of "unison moaning", a melodic style common in Baptist churches where, instead of harmonizing, a choir hums or sings the same vocal part, albeit with slight variations among its members.[7] Although Johnson's vocals are indiscernible, several sources indicate the subject of the song is thecrucifixion of Christ.[2]
His records were sold by the Columbia andVocalion labels with other blues acts likeBessie Smith, whom Johnson outsold during the Depression years.[8] In 1928, the influential blues critic Edward Abbe Niles championed Johnson in his column forThe Bookman, praising his "violent, tortured, and abysmal shouts and groans, and his inspired guitar playing".[9]
Johnson's music experienced a revival in the 1960s thanks in large part to the efforts of blues guitaristReverend Gary Davis. A highly regarded figure within the burgeoning New York folk scene, Davis gave copies of Johnson's records to young musicians and taught them to play his songs.The Soul Stirrers,Staples Singers,Buffy Sainte-Marie andPeter, Paul & Mary all covered Johnson.[6] In 1969, the Englishfolk-rock bandFairport Convention released the albumWhat We Did on Our Holidays which included a song inspired by "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" called "The Lord Is in this Place...How Dreadful Is this Place".[10] A compilation album titledDark Was the Night was released in 2009 by theRed Hot Organization, a charity that raises awareness of HIV and AIDS issues through music. TheKronos Quartet recorded an arrangement of "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" that appears on the album.[11] The song "Excavating Rita" byHalf Man Half Biscuit on their 2011 album90 Bisodol (Crimond) quotes the song's title.
Singer-guitaristJack White ofThe White Stripes called "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" "the greatest example of slide guitar ever recorded"[12] and used the song as a standard to measure such iconic rock music that followed in its wake, such as "Whole Lotta Love" byLed Zeppelin.[13] In 2003, John Clarke inThe Times wrote that "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was "the most intense and startling blues record ever made".[14] Francis Davis, author ofThe History of the Blues concurs, writing "In terms of its intensity alone—its spiritualache—there is nothing else from the period to compare to Johnson's 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground', on which his guitar takes the part of a preacher and his wordless voice the part of a rapt congregation."[15]
Johnson's recording of "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was selected by theLibrary of Congress as a 2010 addition to theNational Recording Registry, which selects recordings annually that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[16]The Wire included the song in their 1998 list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)". The staff wrote that Blind Willie "recorded nothing else like this and, therefore, it has no equal in recorded music, even thoughRy Cooder has made a good living scoring movies following its lead." They further noted that the song could retrospectively be described asambient music as it is "a piece ofcountry gospel improvisation, slide guitar with vocal hums and moans, but no lyrics."[17]
“Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” was used on theOscar-nominated soundtrack toPier Paolo Pasolini's filmThe Gospel According to St Matthew, in scenes whereJudas Iscariot laments betraying Christ and a cripple asks to be healed.[18]Ry Cooder based his soundtrack to the filmParis, Texas on "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground", which he has described as "the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music."[19] The television showThe West Wing refers to the song and its impact to theVoyager Program in the Season 5, episode 13 "The Warfare of Genghis Khan" and plays the song at the end of the episode.Wim Wenders, the director ofParis, Texas, included Blind Willie Johnson's music and life in his 2003 documentaryThe Soul of a Man.[20] The song was used inMartin Scorsese's 2023 filmKillers of the Flower Moon.
In 1977,Carl Sagan and other researchers collected sounds and images from planet Earth to send onVoyager 1 andVoyager 2. TheVoyager Golden Record includes recordings of frogs, crickets, volcanoes, a human heartbeat, laughter, greetings in 55 languages, and 27 pieces of music. "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" was included, according to Timothy Ferris, because "Johnson's song concerns a situation he faced many times: nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight."[21]
