Blind Willie Johnson, “John The Revelator”

Compiling a list of songs by black blues singers in the 1920s and 1930s that became classics in the blues and rock worlds of later decades would be a major project. Some of those songs were almost copies of each other, and were usually about heartbreak, loss, depression, and, of course, sex. But some of them also had to do with God, judgment and redemption, and the most famous of them all might well be “John the Revelator,” written and first recorded by the sightless Texas preacher Blind Willie Johnson.

The growling, gravel-voiced Johnson cut “John the Revelator,” a song about the author of the Book of Revelation in the Bible, during his final recording session for Columbia in Atlanta in 1930. The song opened with what would become one of the most famous choruses in blues, or maybe more accurately gospel blues, history:

Well who’s that writin’? John the Revelator
Who’s that writin’? John the Revelator
Who’s that writin’? John the Revelator
A book of the seven seals
Tell me what’s John writin’? Ask the Revelator
What’s John writin’? Ask the Revelator
What’s John writin’? Ask the Revelator
A book of the seven seals

After that chorus, Johnson’s three verses centered on redemption through Christ, John’s place as the storyteller, and Moses of the Old Testament. Thirty-five years later another seminal blues figure (and preacher as well) would revise and record the song, not necessarily changing it as much as continuing it, with a version equally as powerful and important as Johnson’s. Mississippi bluesman Son House – who by then was in his 60s – repeated the first four lines of the chorus, then followed them with three verses completely different than Johnson’s, including verses about Adam, the 12 apostles, and Christ’s resurrection. But House always went back to that legendary chorus between verses the same way Johnson did.

Johnson’s version, with his guitar and response vocals from his wife, set the standard, but House’s version, surprisingly recorded a cappella given that House was an accomplished guitarist, is just as significant in music history. Tom Waits recorded the song, with House’s lyrics, on the 2016 tribute album to Johnson called God Don’t Never Change, while Christian guitar maestro Phil Keaggy is well-known for his electric version with House’s verses. Numerous other artists have recorded it in one form or another as well. This song is perhaps the best example ever of a song that has straddled both the blues and the Christian genres, which, despite being antithetical to each other, often have a lot in common.

In just one more example of Internet inaccuracy, Johnson’s original lyrics can be found credited online to Martin Gore of the edgy English synthpop band Depeche Mode. True, Depeche Mode did record a song called “John the Revelator,” but while it contains biblical references, it’s actually an indictment of President George W. Bush, and has little or nothing in common with the themes or intent of Blind Willie Johnson or Son House.

Read the lyrics.