If We Never Meet Again -- Albert E. Brumley

 

Did he test out this song on his wife Goldie? Or, was it maybe some other family member, like his father-in-law, Joe? Perhaps one of them helped Albert Edward Brumley locate a scrap of paper on which he’d scribbled some of the words of “If We Never Meet Again” in his house in Powell, Missouri. Someday, we might be able to also ask Albert if he had someone special in mind when he crafted his poem, someone who had played an especially important role in his life, like maybe Eugene Bartlett. It was wartime in 1945, when Albert’s song was on his mind, so was he pondering how many folks were trying to handle premature mortality across the world, or particularly in his community? What prompted this 40-year-old future Gospel Music/Oklahoma Music/Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer to pen these stirring words put to music?

 

There’re more than a few questions that the curious person could ask someone like Albert Brumley to answer, but you might not get many certain answers from this fellow. He had a reputation for disorganization, frankly, and whatever notes he might have made with the answers to the who/what/when/where/why of what he did might have been lost or hopelessly misfiled in his office-home. But, that habitual jumble of Albert’s music life did not prevent him from thinking clearly about what he’d compose, and upon whom he could rely as his sounding boards. His wife Goldie had a musical ear, and apparently was someone who would often listen to Albert’s tunes to size them up. His father-in-law Joe likewise reportedly evaluated Albert’s poetry for scriptural accuracy. So, perhaps Goldie and Joe played a significant role in ‘If We Never…’, although the exact setting for the song’s development is unknown. His long-time mentor and friend, Eugene Bartlett, had died four years earlier; could that have been a catalyst for Albert’s poem-song, as he reflected on the passage of someone so significant? Mr. Bartlett was, as someone else has written, Albert’s ‘good Samaritan’ (see link to the lengthy biographic sketch-obituary, below) when the dirt-poor Albert sought a start in the music business as his life’s calling in the late 1920s-early 1930s. Was Albert also considering the passage of so many others in the latter stages of World War II, as he wrote of ‘…this world and its strife’ (refrain); ‘storm clouds’ (v.2); and ‘sorrow’ and ‘pain(ful) benedictions’ (v.3)? We can only guess about the circumstances, but Albert’s state of mind is obvious. He was in what most people would consider mid-life, 40 years old, but could Albert have known for certain that he had another 32 years before death would take him? He says ‘Soon’ as the very first word of his poem, as he contemplated the end of life. And yet, he didn’t think in morbid terms ultimately, but with various phrases looked ahead to eternity. With ‘bright city’ and ‘beautiful shore’ (v.1); ‘sweet by and by’ (v.2); and ‘charming roses…forever’ and ‘separation comes no more’ (refrain), Albert infused the song with hope.

 

We can thank Albert someday, that he refused to look the other way when evidences of mortality invaded his life. This fellow, who wrote hundreds of songs in his life to articulate his convictions, met death head-on, and didn’t blink.Instead, he made musically clear, with a granite-like faith and trust, that he believed the eternal heaven his maker promised is true. One could say that Albert spent a lifetime to overcome life’s endpoint. In fact, it’s not an end, Albert says. It’s a transition, a passage to somewhere else. How do a person’s life relationships look when he goes around saying ‘If we never meet again’? Somebody might say he’s afflicted with melancholy. If that was all Albert had said, that somebody might be right. But, Albert didn’t stop there, did he? He didn’t want anyone else to finish there, either.

 

See a brief biography of composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/r/u/m/brumley_ae.htm   

 

And here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_E._Brumley

 

Also here: https://hymnary.org/person/Brumley_Albert

 

See a very good personal biography of the author here: https://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/tennessee/brumley.htm

 

See biography on composer in Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

I'll Meet You in the Morning -- Albert E. Brumley

 

For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)

 

Was Albert Brumley a morning person? If he wasn’t before the mid-1930s, he must have changed his mind, you’d probably say! Whether or not he had seen a morning sunrise like the one pictured here (painted by Claude Monet in 1872), Brumley had an image of how that endless morning would look, of saying to someone “I’ll Meet You in the Morning”. Did Albert expect to see that morning soon when he penned the words of three verses in 1936? Was he reading something that made him think, or was he longing to see someone again whom he missed? Maybe he was just trying to coax some others that the end of terrestrial existence wasn’t a time to dread.

 

Any number of factors may have contributed to Albert’s thoughts in 1936 about the future’s daybreak. Since his words indicate he was pondering the spiritual, the bible’s many expressions regarding this time may have stirred his imagination, including the ancient song that we know as Psalm 30, written by his musical predecessor David. Who the ‘you’ is that Albert wanted to greet in the afterlife is unknown, but there could be plenty of people that he meant, not unlike those whom you or I would have in mind. Albert had been married five years, having met and married in 1931 his wife Goldie, with whom he would raise a family of six children. Though they were yet a young family at that point, Albert and Goldie must have looked forward to the brood they would have together. Could it also be that Albert wanted to preserve the bonds with his mentor Eugene Bartlett, to whom he owed so much for the musical life that he had begun in 1926 with his help? Or, was it Joe Schell, his father-in-law, who was an occasional sounding board, in addition to Goldie, for Albert’s musical inventions? The Brumleys also belonged to a church in Powell, Missouri, so there could have been any number of spiritual family with whom Albert wanted to share the coming eternal dawn, even if he was just 31 at that point in his life. No doubt, Albert also must have pondered what it would be like to finally meet his God face-to-face, making his words ‘How do you do?’ (refrain) and ‘…exchange the old cross for a crown’ (v.2) the best clues pointing to whom Brumley was imagining.    

 

What was David saying in his ode that may have resonated with Albert in the 1930s? David was overjoyed, reveling in God’s provision for him in times when his own mortality was at risk. To be lifted out of that danger, and set upon a rock, and to know that even His discipline and anger do not have to leave the repentant person eternally condemned, was a source of unspeakable joy. Well, it would have been unspeakable, except that David did speak of it. Albert’s journey by 1936, even for a relatively young man, embodied much that was worthy of an exclamation point, particularly how he met and was befriended by Eugene Bartlett (see the restoration movement link below). His life was almost penniless at one point in 1926, and yet he was able to ponder 10 years later the opposite end of the spectrum -- the eternal blessings of a morning yet to come. He’d come a long way in 10 years, but could imagine the distance and the time that, for some, might seem to be light years away. Can you picture it, today? Is morning still far away, or can you see it?

 

See a brief biography of composer here: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/r/u/m/brumley_ae.htm   

 

And here:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_E._Brumley

 

Also here: https://hymnary.org/person/Brumley_Albert

 

See a very good personal biography of the author here: https://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/tennessee/brumley.htm

 

See biography on composer in Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.

This World Is Not My Home -- Albert E. Brumley

He was on his third place of earthly abode when he declared that he wasn’t really satisfied with the places he’d lived. Albert Brumley said “This World Is Not My Home”, so he wasn’t really trying to accuse any place’s residents of being unfriendly, namely Spiro, Oklahoma where he’d grown up, Hartford, Arkansas where he’d gone to music school, and Powell, Missouri where he had met his wife and lived with his family in 1936 (see the map). It was a pretty rough time all over, during the Great Depression, so perhaps that underscored Albert’s inclination to yearn for a place beyond this planet to call home. It was a musical habit that was one of Brumley’s trademarks.

Music and faith were wound into Albert Edward Brumley from an early age, making his life’s passion that he lived out into his early 70s a calling he undertook with conviction, despite the economic poverty from which he sprang. His inauspicious start as the son of cotton sharecroppers left him with meager resources to pursue the music that he decided by age 16 was his path. But, his upbringing by parents of Christian faith, who also routinely used music in the home as a socializing tool in the community, gave Albert dual drives to overcome the financial hurdles. He also found a Christian music benefactor in Hartford in neighboring Arkansas – Eugene Bartlett – who gave Albert his start in formal training and a music publishing business there. Singing schools that he conducted and marriage – to Goldie, whom he met in Missouri – would also contribute to Albert’s progression. Albert’s composing habits, to write his ideas on various scraps of paper and to make Goldie his sounding board, are probably the background to most of his songs, including ‘This World…Home’. This 31-year old musical master – reportedly, some might have labeled him an oddball – was undoubtedly living in Powell, and still working out his musical ideas with his wife and the music company Bartlett owned, when he penned the words about home in 1936. What led he him to write them is not clear, yet his theme about the Christian life’s destination is not uncommon among the hundreds of songs attributed to him. He thought about his eternal inheritance a lot. Heaven = Home. If Brumley had been a math genius, that’s the eternal equation he would have authored.           

Got a clear picture of heaven? I don’t think I look often enough, honestly, to say what it is I see behind the most obvious facade. Is it awesome? Yes. But, Albert thought it was more appealing to draw a picture of God’s goodness to stir his spirit. The Lord is his ‘friend’, and angels coax him toward the goal (v. 1, and refrain). Albert also sensed that others are waiting, rooting, and celebrating (vv.2-3) as the day of reunion approaches. Has earthly life been good, or not so much for you? Look ahead, and see if you can imagine it the way Albert did. That’s the best therapy for what goes on here.  

See more information on the song story in these sources: The Complete Book of Hymns – Inspiring Stories About 600 Hymns and Praise Songs by William J. Petersen and Ardythe Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006.  

  

See a thorough biography of the author/composer here: 

http://www.therestorationmovement.com/_states/tennessee/brumley.htm

 

See brief biography of the author/composer here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_E._Brumley

And, here: https://hymnary.org/person/Brumley_Albert

Here, also: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/bio/b/r/u/brumley_ae.htm

 

See biography on composer in Our Garden of Song, edited by Gene C. Finley, Howard Publishing Company, West Monroe, Louisiana, 1980.