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Updated 09/03/2020

 

Beautiful Isle of Somewhere


Jessie Brown Pounds
"Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" is a song with words by Jessie Brown Pounds and music by John Sylvester Fearis written in 1897. The song gained huge popularity when it was used in William McKinley's funeral. It was a staple of funerals for decades subsequently, and there are dozens of recorded versions.

Jessie Brown Pounds was born in Hiram, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland on 31 August 1861. She was not in good health when she was a child so she was taught at home. She began to write verses for the Cleveland newspapers and religious weeklies when she was fifteen. After an editor of a collection of her verses noted that some of them would be well suited for church or Sunday School hymns, J. H. Fillmore wrote to her asking her to write some hymns for a book he was publishing. She then regularly wrote hymns for Fillmore Brothers. She worked as an editor with Standard Publishing Company in Cincinnati from 1885 to 1896, when she married Rev. John E. Pounds, who at that time was a pastor of the Central Christian Church in Indianapolis.

A memorable phrase would come to her, she would write it down in her notebook. Maybe a couple months later she would write out the entire hymn. She is the author of nine books, about fifty librettos for cantatas and operettas and of nearly four hundred hymns.

"Beautiful Isle of Somewhere" was originally a poem entitled "Beautiful Isle" by Jessie Brown Pounds. The words were written in the winter of 1896, during a period of miserable weather. Persuaded or possibly forced to stay home, the words were written within an hour's time. It was set to music by John S. Fearis, who had purchased the poem for five dollars, and the song was published in 1897. In 1901, the song was sung by the Euterpian Ladies Quartet towards the beginning of the President McKinley's memorial service.

"Beautiful Isle" follows a 19th-century tradition of depicting paradise.The song was written to contrast the difficulties on Earth with the tranquility of Heaven. The hearer is invited to think that in the long term, "all is well" because God is alive. The hymn has appeal at funerals because the lyrics state that "somewhere" we will "live anew".

The song became highly popular for decades after McKinley’s service. The tune and lyrics have been praised as “beautiful,” but praise for the song has not been universal. Soon after the McKinley service it was panned by The Independent as a singular blot to the memory of the late president. Woodrow Wilson, while governor of New Jersey, stated the song could be harmful if taught to children, as it was "silly" and "vague." The Seventh-day Adventist publication Signs of the Times said "Amen" to the future U.S. President, listing it among songs "inexpressibly weak and shallow". At the same time, John D. Rockefeller was endorsing its use in church. In 1927, William Henry O'Connell, the Archbishop of Boston, banned the use of the tune in funerals, calling the hymn "inane" and "trashy." Cardinal O'Connell was concerned it was among a group of songs composed by authors whose "maudlin sentiment" overshadowed their faith. He threatened organists and choir directors who performed the piece with loss of their positions. Several Boston protestant ministers joined in criticizing the song at that time. Defenders of the hymn stated that descriptions of paradise were necessarily allegorical, and worried the ban would spread to other favorite hymns. A 1928 Lutheran publication used O'Connell's exact words when it described the song as a "sob-producer" that was a "flagrant outrage to faith and the ritual." Later, Donald H. V. Hallock banned the use of this and other "popular" songs from use at Episcopalian services as they did not conform to rubric. Christian theologians have taken issue with the song because it describes Heaven in nebulous terms. Criticisms aside, others have noted that this sentimental song is a "joy to sing."
 

Lyrics by Jessie Brown Pounds

  Somewhere the sun is shining,
Somewhere the songbirds dwell;
Hush, then, thy sad repining,
God lives, and all is well.

Refrain:
Somewhere, somewhere,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!
Land of the true, where we live anew,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!

Somewhere the day is longer,
Somewhere the task is done;
Somewhere the heart is stronger,
Somewhere the prize is won.

 

Refrain

 

Somewhere the load is lifted,
Close by an open gate;
Somewhere the clouds are rifted,
Somewhere the angels wait.

 

Refrain