Prior to the official founding of bluegrass in 1940 with Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, the genre was a melting pot of culture that drew influence from Celtic folk music, Southern life, and, most prominently, religion. Since religion was one of the main contributors to the birth of the genre, one of the most iconic and notable bluegrass songs is the 1907 gospel hymn “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”
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The more than 100-year-old gospel hymn was originally written by Ada R. Habershon, with music composed by Charles H. Gabriel. Habershon was an English physician, religious author, and, most notably, a Christian hymnist who incidentally gifted bluegrass and country one of its quintessential songs.
The epochal tune became a staple of the genre thanks to the first known cover of it by the Carter Family in 1935, in which the hymn was loosely rewritten and retitled “Can the Circle Be Unbroken.” The song’s timelessness was also reinforced by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1972 cover of the song on their album Will The Circle Be Unbroken. An abundance of other artists who have covered the song are Bill and Charlie Monroe, Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan and The Band, George Jones, The Avett Brothers, and even The Doors.
Regardless of the celebrity covers and the minuscule rewrites of the song, the pinnacle reason why this song has been able to transcend the test of time is due to the honesty and truth embedded within the meaning of the 116-year-old lyrics.
The Meaning in the Lyrics
Like many songs, the intended meaning of the lyrics has been interpreted and digested in numerous different lights. Though, an undeniable fact is that the lyrics pose themselves as a lament and or a funeral dirge. Within these grief-stricken lyrics entails an awfully daunting question, that question being: When you close your earthly story / Will you join them in their bliss? In other words, Habershon is seemingly asking whether or not one will continue the cycle of being a righteous human being and rise to heaven after their death in order to meet the rest of their family.
An existential question of vast enormity that is further bolstered by Habershon’s lyrics, as the following verses deliver a poignant sense of melancholy with lines such as: Is a better home awaiting / In the sky, in the sky, as well as Do you love the hymns they taught you /Or are songs of earth your choice?
Habershon stays in the context of grief and poses the sentiment in a visceral metaphor that embodies the song’s title through the image of a campfire circle. As the lyrics go, You can picture happy gath’rings / Round the fireside long ago, and, One by one they went away / Now the family is parted / Will it be complete one day? Meaning, will the ones still present on the earth be reconnected with their dearly departed family members in the afterlife, thus completing the fireside circle.
On the contrary to the song being about the reconnection of family members, another meaning that Habershon may or may not infer is: will the one break the cycle by succumbing to the sin of the earthly world crawling to the depths of hell? This reading of the song is often overlooked by listeners, and musicians covering the song, as it does not support the uplifting message that the lyrics lend themselves to.
Whether or not Habershon intended for that interpretation, that is one of the beautiful elements of the song: that the lyrics are concisely vague enough to offer both an evident head meaning, as well as room for subtextual interpretation that provides a multiplicity of meanings for the listener.
(The Carter Family with Jimmie Rodgers circa 1930. (L-R:) Jimmie Rodgers, Maybelle, Sara, Alvin P. Carter / Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
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