About the Song…

I Will Sing Of My Redeemer

This beautiful song was written by Philip Paul Bliss In the 1800s. He was converted at a Revival meeting at age 12 while he was working on farms and in lumber camps and trying to finish his schooling. At a young age, his vocal talents were recognized and he was encouraged to become a music teacher.  

At age 22,  He became an itinerant music teacher, going house-to-house on horseback in the winter.  Not long afterward, the Normal Academy of Music was held in a nearby town. This six-week course by a community of musicians was renowned, and he was excited to attend until he realized he could not afford the tuition. His grandmother noticed his downtrodden demeanor and pressed him for the reason. When she learned his ambition he told her she had saved a little along the years and sponsored his attendance. 

He studied heartily and soon became well known as a singer and teacher writing a number of gospel songs. in 1869 Dwight L Moody and others encouraged him to give up his job at a music publishing company and become a missionary singer. After much prayer and a five-year delay he decided he was called to be a full-time Christian Evangelist. He had written many hymns by then, including Wonderful Words of Life, Hallelujah What A Savior! Oh, I Will Sing of My Redeemer and others, and made significant amounts of money from their royalties but chose to give them to charity and use them to support his musical evangelical mission. 

Tragically, on the 29th of December 1876,  he and his wife became victims in what became known as the Ashtabula River Railroad disaster. As the train crossed the Ashtabula River in Ohio, a trestle on the bridge collapsed and the carriages fell into the Ravine below. He survived the crash but returned to the wreck to try to find his wife. Neither of them was found in the wreckage.

His luggage somehow survived the crash and the fire. In his trunk was found a manuscript with the lyrics for I Will Sing Of My Redeemer. This became the only well-known song he composed that he did not write the tune for, and it became one of the first songs recorded by Thomas Alva Edison.

https://hymnary.org/text/i_will_sing_of_my_redeemer#Author 

https://hymnary.org/person/Bliss_Philip 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Bliss 

“Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him. Even so, Amen.”
Revelation 1:7