-^-for posterity-^-

larry stephenson, “where the soul of man never dies”
to canaan’s land i’m on my way,
where the soul of man never dies.
my darkest night will turn to day,
where the soul of man never dies.
Chorus:
dear friends there’ll be no sad farewells,
there’ll be no tear dimmed eyes.
where all is peace and joy and love,
where the soul of man never dies.

the rose is blooming there for me,
where the soul of man never dies.
and i will spend eternity,
where the soul of man never dies.

the love light beams across the foam,
where the soul of man never dies.
it shines and lights the way to home,
where the soul of man never dies.

i’ve always been a fan of bluegrass music. music that’s from the heart and full of emotion. for some strange reason, one of my dad’s gospel bluegrass tapes came along with me on the journey. it was a stowaway in my luggage. i discovered it one day and spent an hour and a half listening to it.

i teach a listening class to the second year students. they’re a semi-unruly bunch but they really enjoy it when we listen to songs in class and try to copy down the words. i thought it would be an interesting cultural adventure if we listened to larry stephenson sing about souls.

the banjo and guitar picked a fairly lively rhythm and the class bobbed their heads to the music. the words were another story. “where does the soul of man never die?” quite a tough question to answer. i tried to explain what i thought larry’s view of the world was. i tried to explain why there would be no, “sad farewells”, and no, “tear dimmed eyes.” they understood that it was lively music and they understood that it was country. there’s a definite distinction here between country music and pop music and making that connection with american music seems to give it a different connotation.

so, we played the song through three times. the first two times they worked on the words and, before the third playing, we went over their answers. they were fairly far off, for the most part, and i ended up explaining what the word ‘twang’ meant. the third time through most of the girls were singing along. they would look at the music sheet and sing, “dear friends there’ll be no sad farewells, there’ll be no tear dimmed eyes. where all is peace and joy and love, where the soul of man never dies.” it was quite a sight to see twenty vietnamese girls singing along to a band that i once saw play at the tylersport firehouse on a cold, winter night in a land that seems so far away right now.