In these precarious times, precious Lord, take our hands

On the chilly evening of April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn. He was preparing to leave for dinner, and looking down in the parking lot, he saw saxophonist Ben Branch, who was going to perform at the dinner.

Seconds before a bullet struck, King spoke his last words.

“Ben, make sure you play, ‘Precious Lord, Take My Hand’ at the meeting tonight,” King said. “Play it real pretty.”

It wasn’t the first time King had asked for his favorite song. He’d often request that his friend, gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, sing it at civil rights rallies.

As a teenager, Jackson was a protégé to the song’s writer, Thomas A. Dorsey. Five days after King’s assassination, Jackson performed “Precious Lord” at his nationally televised funeral.

When Jackson died in 1972,

Aretha Franklin sang the song at her funeral. When Franklin died in 2018, Fantasia sung it at hers.

There is no song performed more often at African American funerals than “Precious Lord,” no song more guaranteed to wring out pent-up grief, give release to tears while also giving flight to expectations of better times, lifting the church with its promise of comfort and strength.

For several days last week, “Precious Lord” played in my head. That was before I saw Twitter postings of a 2014 performance by the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in Ukraine.

Knowing what was happening in Ukraine in 2014, the annexation of Crimea, and knowing what that nation is now enduring, it was moving to hear the chorus: “When my way grows drear Precious Lord, linger near

When my light is almost gone Hear my cry, hear my call

Hold my hand lest I fall

Take my hand, precious Lord Lead me on

Precious Lord, take my hand.” “Precious Lord” has come to be known as a funeral song, and while it was composed in the deepest sorrow, it’s ultimately a song of refuge and hope.

The song’s composer, Dorsey, is known as the “Father of Gospel Music.” Before turning to gospel, the Georgia-born songwriter and pianist was a blues writer and performer known as Georgia Tom who wrote and recorded hundreds of records. He wrote, arranged and played for Ma Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues.”

The tension between “sacred” and “secular” music in the Black church is mirrored in the fact that before Dorsey wrote gospel classics like “Precious Lord” and “Peace in the Valley,” he wrote blues numbers with titles like “It’s Tight Like that,” “Pat that Bread” and “Somebody’s Been Using that Thing.”

In August 1932, Dorsey’s wife and child died in childbirth. Heavy with grief, Dorsey sat at a piano, playing with the keys, when, as he put it, “The words like drops of water from the crevice of a rock above seemed to drop in line. With me on the piano, ‘Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand; I’m tired, I’m weak, I’m worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light. Take my hand, precious Lord, and lead me home.’ ”

This was gospel blues. In his superb book “Boogaloo: The Quintessence of American Popular

Music,” Arthur Kempton writes, “Dorsey’s great accomplishment was to make ‘precious Lord, take my hand’ feel the same way as ‘baby, please don’t go.’ ”

The song’s title is “Take my Hand, Precious Lord” but most people call it “Precious Lord” or, as King did, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand.”

Whatever it’s called, it’s said to be the most recorded gospel song in history and was selected by the Recording Industry Association of America for its 365 “Songs of the Century” for the 20th century.

Whether one is of faith, little faith or no faith, the song asks us to believe that even the longest and darkest of nights won’t last, that the most treacherous of storms will end and when we are at our weakest is when we’ll discover our strength.

Somehow, we’ll find our way home.