Kingdom Coming

"Kingdom Coming", or "The Year of Jubilo", is an American Civil War-era song written and composed by Henry Clay Work (1832–1884) in 1861. It was published by Root & Cady in 1862 and first advertised in April by the popular minstrel group Christy's Minstrels.

Narrated by Confederate slaves on a plantation, "Kingdom Coming" recounts their impending freedom after their master disguises himself as a contraband and flees to avoid being captured by Union troops. It is a minstrel song, written in a creole similar to African American Vernacular English, spoken by slaves, and intended to be performed by blackface troupes.

Work was an avowed abolitionist and composed numerous pro-Union songs during the Civil War such as "Marching Through Georgia" (1865) and "Babylon is Fallen" (1863)—the sequel to "Kingdom Coming". The song portended the then-President Abraham Lincoln's issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, an executive order liberating all slaves in Confederate territory.

"Kingdom Coming" was one of the most successful Union songs, renowned as a favorite among Black Unionists and minstrel troupes. It amassed sheet music sales of 75,000 copies. The publisher George Frederick Root claimed that it was his firm's most successful piece "for nearly a year and a half" and "the most successful patriotic song in the West". It prominently features as a lively instrumental in Ken Burns' eponymous documentary on the Civil War and in numerous twentieth-century cartoons, such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Billy Boy.

Work as a songwriter
Henry Clay Work arose from a "staunch abolitionist" family. His father Alanson conducted extensive welfare work for slaves, notably aiding nearly four thousand fugitives attain freedom via the Underground Railroad, on which his house was situated. The humanitarian work the young Henry witnessed left a stirring impression on him as he cultivated profound sympathy for the oppressed African American population. Work spent innumerable hours among freedmen and gradually learned their dialect, which would later enhance his songwriting capability. His exposure to minstrelsy and African American performers also influenced his writing style and its authenticity to slaves' lifestyle and concerns. In 1854 Work settled in Chicago to work as a printer. In his spare time he wrote songs for the minstrel troupe Christy's Minstrels, the same troupe that initiated Stephen Foster's career.

Once the Civil War erupted in 1861, Work diverted his songwriting efforts to aiding the Union effort, seeking to arouse morale among troops in a time when they lacked antislavery vigor. Music was to remedy this dispirited attitude, rallying both White and Black soldiers around a collective struggle for liberty. Work began working with another notable songwriter George Frederick Root, a partner of the Chicagoan publishing house Root & Cady and renowned as a prolific Unionist composer, with such tunes as "Battle Cry of Freedom" and "The Vacant Chair" to his name. Root & Cady, established in 1858, was the "largest [publishing firm] of the era". In March it published one of Work's first wartime songs, "Our Captain's Last Words", with considerable success, and instantaneously took heed of Work's songwriting capability. Root saw great potential in Work's "gift for composition" and, being indispensable to relieve the firm's lack of employees, assigned him a songwriting post lasting until the Civil War's end.

He embarked on a pervasive advertising campaign to promote his compositions. "Kingdom Coming" was his first major song supporting this cause, published by Root in 1862. The campaign paid off as Root & Cady would observe its highest sales during Work's collaboration and issue the hallmark Civil War tunes. Work published twenty-nine songs throughout the war's duration, earning him widespread acclaim as one of the Union's national poets. A writer for the Hartford Courant gazette observed:

"Our country has produced few songwriters whose works have been more widely sung than Mr. Work. Some of his productions have not only been on the lips of nearly every man, women and child in America, but with some variations, in every part of the world. There is scarcely a Grand Army gathering where his songs are not sung, and they are to be sung for generations to come."Work also made considerable contributions to the ever-growing temperance movement in the nineteenth century's latter half. His 1864 song "Come Home, Father" would be adopted as the theme tune for the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

The Emancipation Proclamation
The storyline of "Kingdom Coming" portends the Emancipation Proclamation, an executive order issued in January 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln. It mandated that: "all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the Executive Government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons, and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."Root, along with other Illinoisan Unionists prominently appealed to President Lincoln to issue a degree of emancipation. After the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, on September 27, 1862, approximately 10,000 Chicagoans, accompanied by several musical societies such as Root & Cady, gathered at Bryan Hall and Court House Square to celebrate the occasion. "Kingdom Coming", which symbolized the proclamation's outcome, was one of the tunes chanted by the crowd.

Lyrical analysis
The song is pro-Unionist, and the lyrics are sung from the point of view of slaves ("de darkeys") in Confederate territory, who celebrate their impending freedom after their master flees the approach of Union military forces. The primary persona is a "hypocritical and cowardly" slave owner ("de massa"). They speculate on the future fate of the owner, whom they suspect will pretend to be a runaway slave in order to avoid capture. With their owner absent, the slaves revolt, locking their overseer in a cellar as retribution for his harsh treatment toward them. The slaves then celebrate their impending emancipation by Union soldiers by drinking their absent owner's cider and wine in his kitchen.

The "Year of Jubilo" (Jubilee) refers to the Old Testament practice of freeing bondsmen every fifty years as delineated in the Book of Leviticus:

"Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields."

The law "continues to stimulate models for liberation from oppressive forces, for reconciliation, and for new beginnings". To subjugated Blacks it symbolized the end of their servitude.

In the Civil War
"Kingdom Coming" was first advertised by Christy's Minstrels in April 1862, and became instantly successful and a staple of any minstrel show's repertoire. Its sheet music sold 75,000 copies. Root & Cady reportedly could not keep up with orders for the song, with the publisher claiming: "It is whistled, sung, hummed and instrumentalized everywhere, in fact it is one of the institutions of the day." It was a favorite among African American troops. It was reportedly as popular as "Dixie's Land" during the war and subsequent years.

The sequel "Babylon is Fallen"
Due to the success of "Kingdom Coming", Work penned a sequel titled "Babylon is Fallen", in which the "massa" who "went and run away" enlisted in the Confederate Army. He was discovered by his former slaves and imprisoned. The title alludes to the Book of Revelation of the New Testament: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great" (14:8), referring to the downfall of despotism, appropriate for the slave master's demise.

In popular culture
The tune to "Kingdom Coming" features in several cartoons. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer made use of it in The Three Little Pups, (with Droopy) and Billy Boy, as well as in Michael Lah's Blackboard Jumble and Sheep Wrecked. The piece is whistled throughout all four pictures by a dimwitted wolf character voiced by Daws Butler (using the same slow Southern drawl he would later employ for Huckleberry Hound). This wolf character has no official name, but is commonly referred to as "Jubilo Wolf", in reference to "Year of Jubilo". It also occasionally appears in Warner Bros. cartoons, such as being used throughout the 1938 Porky Pig cartoon Injun Trouble and its 1945 remake Wagon Heels, and the closing scenes of the 1945 Bugs Bunny cartoons The Unruly Hare and Hare Trigger.

Some films exercise it. In The Telegraph Trail (1933), John Trent (John Wayne) whistles this tune. It is instrumental background music in The Horse Soldiers (1959) (also starring Wayne). In Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Esther Smith (Judy Garland) sings new lyrics, written for the movie, to the tune of "Year of Jubilo". The lyrics are in standard English and are inoffensive, with no reference to slavery, the Civil War, or any other controversial subject.

The tune was also used in the introductory section to the second movement of John Philip Sousa's 1925 suite Cubaland.

Notable recordings

 * The McGee Brothers and Todd recorded the song with lyrics in 1927 as "Old Master's Runaway"
 * Frank Crumit recorded "Kingdom Coming and the Year of Jubilo" on November 29, 1927. It was released on Victor 21108.
 * Sauter-Finegan Orchestra recorded an instrumental version titled "Doodletown Fifers", which they released as their first record, and it reached No. 12 on the Billboard Most Played by Disk Jockeys chart in 1952.  "Doodletown Fifers" has also been recorded by the Boston Pops Orchestra.
 * Western pop singer "Tennessee" Ernie Ford had a hit record in 1958 titled "Sunday Barbecue", which became the latest incarnation of the original tune. It was released on Capitol # F3997.
 * A solo piano rendition of the song is included on jazz pianist Bill Carrothers' album, The Blues and the Greys, which features popular music from the time of the Civil War.
 * The song appears on the soundtrack to Ken Burns' Civil War, usually played whenever pictures of General Ulysses S. Grant are shown on screen.
 * The song is performed by Pokey LaFarge in the 2013 collection Divided and United: The Songs of the Civil War, titled as "Kingdom Come".

Recordings

 * Recording by the 2nd South Carolina String Band on their 2000 album Hard Road.
 * Recording by the 97th Regimental String Band on their 1990 album Battlefields and Campfires: Civil War Era Songs, Vol. I.
 * Recording by Califorf Jackson in the original vernacular lyrics on the 1990 album The Songs of the American Civil War.
 * Brass instrumental arranged by Randy Edelman from the 1993 film Gettysburg.
 * Piano instrumental arranged by "Forte Republic".
 * String instrumental arranged by Martin Jonas.

Sheet music

 * Sheet music from Project Gutenberg.
 * Original sheet music from Sheet Music Singer.