Great Christian Music - I'll Fly Away

The son of tenant farmers in the Indian Territory that is now Oklahoma, Albert Brumley quit school after tenth grade and didn’t have much of a future to look forward too-except pick cotton for the rest of his life. Then, when he was sixteen years old, he attended a singing school in his farm community of Rock Island and discovered he could sing better than most adults and he could harmonize, too.
So at nineteen he went to a music school in the Ozark Mountains to learn how to write music. He dropped out after a year and went back to picking cotton. One day while picking cotton, he started singing a popular song called “The Prisoner’s Song.” I was like that prisoner, he thought. When he saw a bird flying to a better place, young Albert got an idea for a new song. He returned to music school and continued to struggle with his idea for a song. Seven years later, he felt the song was ready to be published. Immediately, it became a favourite.
In time, Brumley became known as the world’s most recorded songwriter, but none of his songs rivaled the popularity of “I’ll Fly Away.”

Scriptures: 2 Corinthians 5:8; Philippians 1:23; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18
Themes: Heaven, Hope, Death

Some glad morning when this life is o’er, I’ll fly away;
To a home on God’s celestial shore, I’ll fly away.

I’ll fly away, O glory, I’ll fly away;
When I die , hallelujah, by and by, I’ll fly away.

When the shadows of this life have gone, I’ll fly away;
Like a bird from prison bars has flown, I’ll fly away.

Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away;
To a land where joys shall never end, I’ll fly away.

Here is a great version by Jars of Clay off their 2005 album Redemption Songs where they recorded some great old hymns.



Albert E. Brumley (1905 – 1977)

Information taken from; The Complete Book of Hymns by William J Petersen and Ardythe Petersen