Shaker Songs

I first encountered Shaker music in 1995 when visiting Pleasant Hill Shaker Village outside Lexington, Kentucky. On the day I visited, I heard Randy Folger perform Shaker spirituals in the meetinghouse. I immediately fell in love with the songs - they were fresh and inviting and sounded unlike anything I’d heard before. Intrigued with this unique American tradition, I returned to Pleasant Hill in 1997 and began making choral arrangements of Shaker songs and hymns that same year. “Shaker Songs” - a suite of five of these arrangements - was published by earthsongs in 1998.

Peace
“Peace,” a song from the Enfield, New Hampshire Shaker community, is the very first Shaker song I arranged for SATB chorus. It is lightly harmonized and spotlights the the chant-like nature of the original melody. I first came across the tune in Roger Hall’s songbook “Love is Little: A Sampling of Shaker Spirituals,” and the free-flowing lyricism of this melody is one of the unique qualities that initially attracted me to Shaker music. Pacifism and nonviolence are part of the Shakers’ core principles.

Love is Little
The words “little” and “low” appear frequently in Shaker songs to invoke the tenets of simplicity and humility so central to Shaker life. There is perhaps no better expression of Shakerism than this simple song from South Union, Kentucky.

Heavenly Display
”Heavenly Display” is a three-verse hymn that celebrates the tangible expression of “heavenly” qualities in the “waves of the ocean,” the “wheels of a time-piece,” and the “wings of an eagle.” The refrain features the vocables “O le ul lum ul la.” The use of vocables and unknown tongues are common elements of Shaker music. The “beyond words” quality of the “O le ul lum ul la” refrain contributes significantly to the exuberance of “Heavenly Display,” in the same manner that singing “fa la la la la” does in a carol like “Deck the Halls.”

Lay Me Low
“Lay Me Low” is one of the most frequently performed arrangements from the Shaker Harmony collection, and is available on many recordings, including The Dale Warland Singers’ “Harvest Home.” In 2018, it was sung by The Joint Armed Forces Chorus at the State Funeral of President George H. W. Bush. “Lay Me Low” is arranged for 8-part chorus and is derived from a simple and haunting gift song by Addah Z. Potter (1809-1894), who lived at the New Lebanon Shaker community in upstate New York. Upon each repetition of the first section, a voice within the choral texture is “laid low” and is reduced to singing a drone on a single note, which results in a gradual build-up in the texture.

Benediction
The rousing, exuberant refrain of “Benediction” is an excerpt of the Shaker song Angels of Heaven. It can be sung responsively or freely repeated.

For more information on Shaker music and/or the Shakers in general, see Shaker Resources.

I.
Peace unto Zion.
Peace, peace to the faithful,
and a crown of rejoicing from your Heavenly Father.

When Zion shall be cleansed she shall flourish as a rose.
I will walk in her midst and will bless all those with a tenfold blessing.
And their sorrows shall cease, for I’ll cry upon her walls.

Peace, peace, sweet peace.

II.
Love is little, love is low,
Love will make my spirit grow.
Grow in peace, grow in light,
Love will do the thing that’s right.

III.
The waves of the ocean imitate the rolls
of the heavenly music that rolls in heaven.
O le ul lum ul la, O le ul lum ul la,
O glory to God for this heavenly display.

The wheels of a timepiece imitate the flows
of the heavenly love, love that flows in heaven.
O le ul lum ul la etc.

The wings of an eagle imitate the seraphim
that soar in the heavens of heavenly love.
O le ul lum ul la etc.

IV.
Lay me low,
lay me low,
lay me low.

Where the Lord can find me,
Where the Lord can bless me,
Where the Lord can own me.

V.
Holy, holy, holiness unto the Lord.
Love ye, love ye, love ye one another.