“God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign” is a sacred song rooted in the African American spiritual tradition. Its central image — God’s promise after the Flood, “no more water, but fire next time” — is an old one, and the phrase carried such weight that it later gave the writer James Baldwin the title of his 1963 book “The Fire Next Time.”
The song entered the country and old-time canon through the Carter Family, the foundational Virginia trio, who recorded it in 1929. A.P. Carter, who gathered and reshaped a great deal of traditional material for the family’s repertoire, is credited on the recording, though the song clearly draws on far older spiritual sources.
Like much of the Carter Family’s sacred material, the song moved easily into bluegrass and old-time gospel singing, where its warning imagery and singable melody kept it in circulation. The version heard here is by Ralph Stanley, recorded for his 2006 album “A Distant Land to Roam,” a collection devoted entirely to Carter Family songs.
