Lyrics to
The River Hymn

This version of The River Hymn was released by The Band in 1971.

Our Decade Lyrics The Band profile has all of the The River Hymn lyrics from 1971 and many more songs from the The Band discography that we have on file.

Here's more interesting things in songs and lyrics tied to The Band or about the 1970s in general.

The ladies would put the baskets on the table
And the men would sit beneath a shady tree
The children would listen to a fable
While something else came through to me
The river got no end, just roll around the bend
Then pretty soon the women would all join in
On the river hymn…

The whole congregation was standing on the banks of the river
We are gathered here to give a little thanks thanks

The voice of the rapids will echo
And ricochet like an old water well
Who d ever want to let go
Once you sit beneath its spell
It’s dark and wide and deep, towards the sea it creeps
I’m so glad I brought along my mandolin
To play the river hymn…

You can ride on it or drink it
Poison it or dam it
Fish in it and wash in it
Swim in it and you can die in it
Run, you river, run

Son, you ain’t never seen yourself
No crystal mirror can show it clear, come over here instead
Son, you ain’t never eased yourself
Til you laid it down in a river bed
If you hear a lonesome drone, it’s as common as a stone
And gets louder as the day grows dim
That’s the river hymn…

The whole congregation was standing on the banks of the river
We are gathered here to give a little thanks thanks

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The Band has released many songs over the years besides The River Hymn. The Band released songs from 1968 to 2002 spanning across albums like Music From Big Pink, The Band, Stage Fright, Cahoots, Moondog Matinee, Northern Lights - Southern Cross, Islands, Jericho, High On The Hog, Jubilation, and The Last Waltz. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by The Band.

If you're a fan of 1970s music looking for more songs from 1971 or the 1970s overall, you've come to the right place!

About Lyrics and The River Hymn by The Band

The lyrics for The River Hymn are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1971 song by The Band. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to The River Hymn have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for The River Hymn - The Band and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to The River Hymn by The Band in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The River Hymn" means the words set to the music of The River Hymn, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by The Band. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The River Hymn and the lyrics to The River Hymn are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of The Band who came here looking just for the lyrics to The River Hymn, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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