Friday at Auction Finds is a day to answer readers’ questions. I try to guide readers to resources to help them determine the value of their items or learn more about them. Today, a reader is seeking help in finding the lyrics to a song by African American composer Thomas A. Dorsey.
Question:
Looking for the lyrics to Thomas A. Dorsey’s “Someday, I’m gonna see my Jesus.” Can you help….need ASAP. Thanks.
Answer:
The reader had read my blog post about Dorsey, who wrote one of the most beautiful and soul-stirring gospel songs of all time, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.” He penned the song in 1932 after the heartbreaking loss of his wife Nettie who died after giving birth to a son who died a day later. Dorsey was in so much pain that he questioned his faith, but found his way out of the darkness with this song.
The blog post was actually about a gospel song that he wrote in 1958 on the 17th anniversary of his marriage to his second wife Kathryn. The song was titled “In the Scheme of Things,” and I found a copy of the sheet music for it among some music books and other sheet music at auction a few years ago. The song was published by Dorsey’s own company in Chicago. In fact, his was one of several African American-owned companies that published gospel music starting in the 1930s.
So I was delighted to search for anything related to Dorsey, who had started out composing and playing jazz and blues before converting to gospel. I figured that it should be an easy question to answer, but it didn’t turn out that way. This apparently was not one of Dorsey’s most popular songs and I had to dig deep to find it.
The reader asked for lyrics rather than sheet music, so I went searching to find the existence of the song itself. I could find no such song by Dorsey with the title from her email. I did, however, find some others in the first listing of Google results: “Someday I’m Going to See My Lord” by Milan G. Brown Jr., published 1946; “Someday, Somewhere” by Dorsey (undated); “Someday Soon” by Edna Fisher (1929); “Someday in Due Time” by Sammy Lewis and Kenneth Morris (1952), and “I’ll Overcome Someday” by Kenneth Morris.
I was familiar with Morris because I’d written about black gospel music publishing houses. He and Sally Martin were owners of the country’s oldest such company, Martin and Morris Music Inc. Based in Chicago, it was founded in 1940 and folded in the 1980s, the last of them. He composed music, arranged it and notated it. Martin handled the business side of the company as well as toured as a gospel singer.
Brown, I learned, was a singer and songwriter who was best known for the song “Just Jesus.” His mother Beatrice Brown was a singer and owner of Brown’s Music House publishing company. With Dorsey, she helped founded the National Convention of Gospel Choirs and Choruses in 1933.
I found the title “Someday I’m Going to See My Savior” in a list of Dorsey’s songs, but a search didn’t turn up anything. Then I came across the sale of a phonograph record of the song at an auction two months ago.
I finally located the song titled “Some Day I’m Going to See My Jesus” on a website that had a photo of a 45 record of the song on the MGM Records label, along with the actual recording by Dorsey and the Celestial Singers.
I sent the link to the reader and suggested that she pull the lyrics from the recording, but never heard back from her. No problem, though; it was good to be reacquainted with Dorsey and his wonderful music.
