There Is A Fountain

From the album "Roadhouse"

Zoomer Roberts: vocals
Buddy Winston: guitar
Steve Smith: mandola

This is yet another track from the "Roadhouse" sessions. It was my good fortune to have Steve Smith play mandola on it. Steve is a good improviser, but I wanted him to play melody in an old-fashioned way. He gave me exactly what I wanted, but it took a few tries. Playing simply is difficult!

Around this same time, Buddy told a woman at an Applejack gig that we were recording some hymns. "How nice!" she chirped. "Is it 'Amazing grace, how sweet the sound?' " She said the words with a lilt, almost singing them.

"No," I replied dryly, "it's 'There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel's veins.' "

"That's disgusting!" She curled her lips as though the crucifixion were a Stephen King creation.

There Is a Fountain
William Cowper, pub.1772
American melody, pub.1874

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains:

Lose all their guilty stains,
Lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away:

Wash all my sins away,
Wash all my sins away;
And there may I, though vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.

When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save:

I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save;
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

Listen!