The Cross and the Jukebox: God’s Gonna Cut You Down
— Friday, February 18th, 2011 —
Last week I received an email from a listener to “The Cross and the Jukebox” suggesting we emphasize an African-American singer or songwriter for Black History Month. I love the idea. We have lots of artists in the hopper who would fit. We’ll be talking in days coming up about Mahalia Jackson and Charley Pride and Fannie Lou Hamer (who is thought of as an activist rather than an artist, but her singing was crucial to the movement for freedom in Mississippi), not to mention the Delta Blues and jazz greats that we’ll address later as well.
But one name stood out for me this week, and that’s Odetta. This week on “The Cross and the Jukebox” we’ll listen to Odetta take on, among others, the cowardly night riders of the Ku Klux Klan in the chillingly beautiful song “God’s Gonna Cut You Down.” Then we’ll discuss why this song taps into a universal human thirst for justice, and a biblical truth about the slow certainty of God’s judgment.
“You can run on for a long time,” Odetta sings. “But sooner or later, God’ll cut you down.”
Listen to this week’s episode here, and send me your suggestions for songs you’d like to talk about to questions@russellmoore.com
If you are going to talk about songs by Jazz greats, one that immediately jumps out to me is “Strange Fruit” sung by the great Billie Holiday.
I was only familiar with the versions of this song by Johnny Cash and Moby, and it never occurred to me that the song was anti-KKK. Now I love the song even more.
This was really good, and as you alluded in the podcast, it’s the Cash version of this song that I (and probably most people) know of this song from… and I too found the Cash video odd, with the amalgam of mixed celebrities. I would have prefered to just see a video of Cash recording the song.
To me, this song when done by Cash always struck me as a type of self-indictment - in regards to his own experience being “cut down” during the rougher times of his life. I do love the song and really appreciated your commentary.