Wayfaring Stranger

The words were in print by 1858, in Joseph Bever's Christian Songster, and the song probably dates from the early 19th century. Its origins are unclear. Some hear coded language from Black spirituals, with the river Jordan standing for the Ohio and the road north, while others have linked it to a Scottish border ballad or a German hymn.

During the Civil War the words were called the "Libby Prison Hymn," after a story that a dying Union soldier wrote them on the wall of the Confederate prison in Richmond, but the song was already in print before the prison opened. Burl Ives made it his signature song in the 1940s, and it has been a bluegrass and gospel standard ever since.