Day 7 . . . While in the Appalachian town of Murphy, North Carolina, John Jacob Niles - composer, singer and collector of traditional music - attended a fundraising meeting held by evangelicals who had been ordered out of town by the police. In his unpublished autobiography, he wrote of hearing the song I Wonder As I Wander: "A girl had stepped out to the edge of the little platform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins. She was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song." The girl, named Annie Morgan, repeated the fragment seven times in exchange for a quarter per performance, and Niles left with "three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material - and a magnificent idea." Based on this fragment, Niles composed the version of I Wonder as I Wander that is known today, extending the melody to four lines and the lyrics to three stanzas. He completed the song on October 4, 1933, and first performed it on December 19, 1933 at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. He published it in his 1934 book Songs of the Hill Folk. Niles's "folk composition" process caused confusion among singers and listeners, many of whom believed this song to be anonymous in origin. In the 1934 collection, Niles describes the work as a traditional folk-carol. But decades later, in his 1975 collection The Songs of John Jacob Niles, and in his unpublished autobiography, Niles admitted that he composed the work in July 1933 based upon that small melodic fragment sung to him by Annie Morgan. The work is not really an American folk song, but a new composition partly based on possible traditional material.
Whatever the origins of this haunting song, it has become a staple of the Christmas season. And it's a personal favorite of mine - especially in the lovely piano arrangement by Fred Bock as performed by John Pahlow.
I Wonder As I Wander - Mark Padmore (tenor) (arr. by Benjamin Britten)
I Wonder As I Wander - performed by John Pahlow (arr. by Fred Bock)
I Wonder As I Wander - performed by Vocore (arr. by J. Rutter)
I Wonder As I Wander - Heather Mills (harp)
I Wonder As I Wander - arranged for chorus by Jennaya Robison
I Wonder As I Wander - performed by La harpe de melodie, with soprano Amelia Tobiason
I Wonder as I Wander - performed by John Jacob Niles
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