Song of the Day 4/21: The Stanley Brothers, “Angel Band”

Pope Francis has rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible, apparently after a surprisingly active Easter considering he was at death’s door last month. Also, it seems that JD Vance has shown himself a worthy successor to Trump, at least on the “everything he touches dies” front.

We’ll probably hear lots of lugubrious church music at Francis’ funeral; whatever else the Reformation did, it certainly improved liturgical music by bringing in popular song forms. I’d rather listen to gospel songs any day, especially my last one. When I’m on my deathbed I want to hear “Angel Band.”

The poem “My Latest Sun Is Sinking Fast,” published in 1860 by Methodist minister Jefferson Hascall, was set to a melody by prolific hymnist William Batchelder Bradbury in 1862. It was quickly added to hymnals of various denominations, and it’s been recorded by dozens of bluegrass artists since the 1920s. T Bone Burnett used this version by the Stanley Brothers for the soundtrack of the Coen brothers’ “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”