This week on Three Tune Tuesday, we step gently into the long, slow resistance of endurance. Against a backdrop of political erosion and cultural fatigue, we turn to three early 20th-century recordings that whisper instead of roar — songs that offer spiritual grounding, forward momentum, and the healing power of shared memory. From a parlor hymn of self-realignment to a Highland traveler’s ballad, and finally to a balm born of Black spiritual resilience, this episode is for anyone who’s felt like giving up… and decided to sing instead. Featuring Olive Kline & Elsie Baker’s 1922 duet of “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing”, Robert Murray’s 1924 journey along “The Road to the Isles” (Aco Records), and the 1914 recording of “There Is a Balm in Gilead” by the Fisk Jubilee Quartet.
Lyrics
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Come, thou Fount of every blessing;
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above;
praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of God’s unchanging love!
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace now, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart; O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.
The Road to the Isles
A far croonin’ is pullin’ me away*
As take I wi’ my cromak to the road.
The far Coolins are puttin’ love on me
As step I wi’ the sunlight for my load.
Chorus
Sure, by Tummel and Loch Rannoch
And Lochaber I will go.
By heather tracks wi’ heaven in their wiles;
If it’s thinkin’ in your inner heart
Braggart’s in my step,
You’ve never smelt the tangle o’ the Isles.
O, the far Coolins are puttin’ love on me.
As step I wi’ my cromak to the lsles.
It’s by Sheil water and track is to the west.
By Aillort and by Morar to the sea,
The cool cresses I am thinkin’ o’ for pluck,
And bracken for a wink on Mother knee.
Chorus
It’s the blue Islands are pullin’ me away,
Their laughter puts the leap upon the lame,
The blue Islands from the Skerries to the Lews,
Wi’ heather honey taste upon each name.
There is a Balm in Gilead
There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole,
there is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.
Sometimes I feel discouraged
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.
If you cannot preach like Peter,
if you cannot pray like Paul,
you can tell the love of Jesus
and say, “He died for all.”