On The Banks Of The Promised Land Lyrics

[Tatsuya Deals]

Promised Land" is a song lyric written by Chuck Berry to the melody of "Wabash Cannonball", an American folk song. The song was first recorded in this version by Berry in 1964 for his album St. Louis to Liverpool. Released in December 1964, it was Berry's fourth single issued following his prison term for a Mann Act conviction. The record peaked at #41 in the Billboard charts on January 16, 1965.

Berry wrote the song while in prison, and borrowed an atlas from the prison library to plot the itinerary. In the lyrics, the singer (who refers to himself as "the poor boy") tells of his journey from Norfolk, Virginia, to the "Promised Land", Los Angeles, California, mentioning various cities in Southern states that he passes through on his journey. Describing himself as a "poor boy," the protagonist boards a Greyhound bus in Norfolk, Virginia that passes Raleigh, N.C., stops in Charlotte, North Carolina, and bypasses Rock Hill, South Carolina. The bus rolls out of Atlanta but breaks down, leaving him stranded in downtown Birmingham, Alabama. He then takes a train "across Mississippi clean" to New Orleans. From there, he goes to Houston, where "the people there who care a bit about me" buy him a silk suit, luggage and a plane ticket to Los Angeles. Upon landing in Los Angeles, he calls Norfolk, Virginia ("Tidewater four, ten-oh-nine") to tell the folks back home he made it to the "promised land." The lyric: "Swing low, sweet chariot, come down easy/Taxi to the terminal zone" refers to the gospel lyric: "Swing low, sweet Chariot, coming for to carry me Home" since both refer to a common destination, "The Promised Land," which in this case is California, reportedly a heaven on earth.

Billboard called the song a "true blue Berry rocker with plenty of get up and go," adding that "rinky piano and wailing Berry electric guitar fills all in neatly."[2] Cash Box described it as "a 'pull-out-all-the-stops' rocker that Chuck pounds out solid sales authority" and "a real mover that should head out for hit territory in no time flat."[3] In 2021, it was listed at No. 342 on Rolling Stone's "Top 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[4]

In December 1973, Elvis Presley recorded a powerful, driving version. Presley's version of "Promised Land" was released as a single on September 27, 1974. It peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,[9] and 9 on the UK Singles Chart in the fall of 1974.[10] It was included on his 1975 album Promised Land. The Presley version was used in the soundtrack of the 1997 motion picture Men in Black.

The song was covered in French by Johnny Hallyday, using an adaptation of Presley's arrangement (Hallyday is commonly referred to as the French version of Presley for his contributions to rock and roll in France). His version (titled "La Terre promise") was released in September 1975 for his twentieth studio album of the same name (which would be released four days after the single) and spent one week at no. 1 on the singles sales chart in France (from November 1 to 7, 1975).[18] The single is backed by "La Premiere Fois" ("The first time").

Settlement homes, mostly constructed of cement with a cosmetic limestone cladding, tend to fashion a similar look: American-style villas topped by red-tiled roofs and surrounded by lush, neatly trimmed green lawns.

The first Kibbutz Degania, was established in 1909 by European Jewish colonists. Tel Aviv, now the economic capital of Israel, was also built in the early 20th century and was one of the first settlements.

Between 1922 and 1935, the Jewish population rose from nine percent to nearly 27 percent of the total population, displacing tens of thousands of Palestinian tenants from their lands as Zionists bought land from absentee landlords.

Shortly after the issuance of UN Resolution 181 that called for partition, war broke out between Palestinian Arabs and Zionist armed groups, who, unlike the Palestinians, had gained extensive training and arms from fighting alongside Britain in World War II

Zionist paramilitary groups launched a violent process of ethnic cleansing in the form of large-scale attacks, massacres, and destruction of entire villages aimed at the mass expulsion of Palestinians to build the Jewish state. By the end of 1949, the Jewish state had taken up some 78 percent of historical Palestine.

But less than 20 years later - in 1967 - another Arab-Israeli war broke out. During the fighting, Israel militarily occupied the rest of historical Palestine, consisting of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

The annexation of East Jerusalem is not recognised by any country in the world as it violates several principles of international law, which outlines that an occupying power does not have sovereignty in the territory it occupies.

The dilemma of the settlements and the occupation has effectively split Israelis between those who believe it is their God-given right to settle land that was promised to the Jewish people, and others who believe the settlements are a death sentence for the Jews.

In a series of agreements known as the Geneva Conventions, formulated in the aftermath of World War II, the international community established a set of accepted rules and standards for the protection of civilians, prisoners and injured people in times of war.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, which defines humanitarian protections for civilians caught in a war zone, an occupying power is forbidden from transferring parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.

But the Israeli government maintains that the status of the Palestinian territories is ambiguous, as there was no internationally recognised government in the territories prior to the 1967 war. The Israeli government argues that it took the territory from Jordan, which had control of the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1949 and 1967, while Egypt had control of the Gaza Strip.

Since Israel has not annexed the occupied West Bank and does not have jurisdiction there, it uses military orders as well as its own interpretations of Ottoman, British and Jordanian laws to seize Palestinian property.

In East Jerusalem, however, the state applies Israeli law, despite the fact that the territory is considered occupied under international law, and the Palestinians who live there are not Israeli citizens.

Though many Palestinians had paid taxes and cultivated their land for decades, most land wasn't registered during the Ottoman and British occupations; in 1968, Israel stopped the process of land registration and declared any unregistered land as belonging to the Israeli government.

As opposed to expropriation, this law leaves the plot of land under the name of the original owners until the army no longer needs the land, but the areas have almost never been returned to their Palestinian owners.

After the 1967 war and occupation of the West Bank, Israel applied this law in the form of a military order that saw the transfer of all property belonging to Palestinian refugees who left the West Bank during 1967 to the Israeli government,

In 2015, the Israeli government made this law applicable to East Jerusalem and used it to seize private property of Jerusalem refugees in the West Bank or Gaza who are forbidden from returning to their homes.

Settlements are scattered across the West Bank in a way that makes a contiguous Palestinian state impossible, while in Jerusalem the Israeli government has built settlements around the city to consolidate control over it.

"The government will approve the Greater Jerusalem law that will strengthen the eternal capital Jerusalem - demographically and geographically," Yoav Kish, the Knesset member (MK) who submitted the proposal for the bill, said on Twitter.

While many Israeli members of parliament hope to annex the entire West Bank - which they call by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria - there is a fear that bringing the territory into the boundaries of Israel would upset the population ratio by tipping the demographic balance in favour of the Palestinians in the country.

All the settlements are located in Area C, where some 300,000 Palestinians live - a figure consistently under-reported by Israeli politicians. Annexing the territory would mean that Israel could absorb the maximum amount of land with the least number of Palestinians.

The settlements in the West Bank are already connected to East Jerusalem and Israel through a series of Jewish-only roads that give the settlers the luxury of crossing the Green Line without having to pass through Palestinian population centres - as though they live in one single state.

The situation in Area C, where Israel consistently acts to minimise Palestinian presence through home demolitions, displacement, theft of resources and refusing to grant building permits, amounts to de facto annexation.

Israel's policies of occupation and settlement have come to be seen as a purposeful strategy of de-development to weaken resistance to military rule and thwart attempts to build a successful Palestinian state.

While building homes for settlers, Israel employs a policy of home demolitions to restrict the expansion of Palestinian communities on the pretext that homes were built without necessary permits, while refusing to issue them.

I Am Bound For The Promised Land

Rev. Samuel Stennett, Miss M. Durham, arranged by Rigdon McCoy McIntosh

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,

And cast a wishful eye

To Canaan's fair and happy land,

Where my possessions lie.

Refrain

I am bound for the promised land,

I am bound for the promised land;

Oh who will come and go with me?

I am bound for the promised land.

O the transporting, rapturous scene,

That rises to my sight!

Sweet fields arrayed in living green,

And rivers of delight!

Refrain

There generous fruits that never fail,

On trees immortal grow;

There rocks and hills, and brooks and vales,

With milk and honey flow.

Refrain

O'er all those wide extended plains

Shines one eternal day;

There God the Son forever reigns,

And scatters night away.

Refrain

No chilling winds or poisonous breath

Can reach that healthful shore;

Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,

Are felt and feared no more.

Refrain

When I shall reach that happy place,

I'd be forever blest,

For I shall see my Father's face,

And in His bosom rest.

Refrain

Filled with delight my raptured soul

Would here no longer stay;

Though Jordan's waves around me roll,

Fearless I'd launch away.

Refrain

Note that Heavenly Highways credits the arrangement to Rev. E. M. Parnum, rather than Rigdon McCoy McIntosh as in the Cyber Hymnal. I would not say that one version is more "right" than the other, but I think it is safe to say that the version most often sung in rural churches of the Southern United States would be the Heavenly Highways version.

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