The Spirit of Saint Louis

Louis Armstrong recorded "When the Saints Go Marching In," in 1938 and the song has remained a tried and true staple of American Music since then. There are close to 1,000 different recordings of the song, and the song received the distinction of being named a "Towering Song" by the Songwriters Hall of Fame. When a song achieves that level of fame, it becomes known as a "standard." Here you can listen to eleven different versions of the song by artists as different as Bruce Springsteen, Ray Charles, the Cincinnati Symphony, Fats Domino, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band, James Brown, and even the Beatles, whose version was on the "B" side of the their first commercial release in 1961. But it's Satchmo's version that people turn to capture that familiar New Orleans Spirit.

When the song was first played, the traditional use of the song was as a funeral march. In New Orleans, accompanying the coffin to the cemetary, the band would play the song slow and sad, but on the way back, after the funeral, the song would be played in an upbeat tempo. Louis said this about this tradition of the returning funeral parade, "the second line is a bunch of guys who follow the parade. They're not the members of the lodge or the club. Anybody can be a second liner. Whether they be raggedy or dressed up, they seemed to have more fun than anybody."

When the Saints Go Marching In

We are trav'ling in the footsteps

Of those who've gone before

But we'll all be reunited (but if we stand reunited)

On a new and sunlit shore (then a new world is in store)

O when the saints go marching in

When the saints go marching in

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

And when the sun refuse (begins) to shine

And when the sun refuse (begins) to shine

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

When the moon turns red with blood

When the moon turns red with blood

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

On that hallelujah day

On that hallelujah day

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

O when the trumpet sounds the call

O when the trumpet sounds the call

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

Some say this world of trouble

Is the only one we need

But I'm waiting for that morning

When the new world is revealed

When the revelation (revolution) comes

When the revelation (revolution) comes

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

When the rich go out and work

When the rich go out and work

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

When the air is pure and clean

When the air is pure and clean

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

When we all have food to eat

When we all have food to eat

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in

When our leaders learn to cry

When our leaders learn to cry

O Lord I want to be in that number

When the saints go marching in