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Read the lyrics to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot and discover the inspirational story and meaning behind one of the most popular hymns of all time!
"Home" can mean many things in this spiritual. It could mean a new, free home through fleeing slavery, and the "band of angels" doing the carrying in the stanza below could represent...
I saw a band of angels coming after me, Coming for to carry me home. [Refrain] If you get back to heaven before I do, Coming for to carry me home. You'll tell all your friends I'll be coming there too, Coming for to carry me home. [Refrain]
Literal meaning: I looked over the River Jordan and what did i see? Deeper meaning : I looked over the Mississippi River and what did i see? A band of angles coming after me
The most obvious interpretation of this poem is that it is about God and a band of angels coming to end the speaker’s worldly suffering with death and take him or her off to heaven. Freedom. It is a matter of record that Negro slaves, who could not sing openly about the desire to escape to freedom, would disguise this theme in their songs.
Swing low, sweet chariot, Coming for to carry me home. 1 I looked over Jordan, and what did I see, Coming for to carry me home. A band of angels coming after me, Coming for to carry me home. Oh, [Refrain] 2 If you get there before I do, Coming for to carry me home.
In Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, a line of fashionable angels welcomes a man to heaven. Having arrived by a horse-drawn chariot, he greets them with open arms. In the Bible, the prophet Elijah was carried to heaven by a chariot of fire at the end of his life.
