Traditional · Key of Am · Public domain
Opens in the Chord Sheet Maker: transpose to your key, change chords, add strumming patterns, or print a clean copy. No account needed to start.
Wayfaring Stranger (often Poor Wayfaring Stranger) is an American folk spiritual from the early 19th century, sung by a traveler passing through a world of woe toward a brighter home beyond the Jordan. It circulated through camp meetings and rural hymn traditions, appearing in print in mid-1800s songbooks, and became part of the shape-note singing repertoire that preserved so much early American sacred music.
The song has lived many lives since: Burl Ives adopted it as his signature in the 1940s, and it has been recorded by Johnny Cash, Emmylou Harris, Jack White, and seemingly every artist drawn to its lonesome minor-key beauty. Its endurance is easy to understand. The melody carries grief and hope in the same breath, and the words belong to no one and everyone, firmly in the public domain.
The verses sit on a somber A minor to D minor axis, then the chorus opens into F and C like sun through clouds before settling back home. Keep the verses sparse (single bass notes and light arpeggios work beautifully) and let the chorus bloom. It is equally at home fingerpicked as a lament or strummed as slow-burning americana.
