“Gospel Plow” is a traditional African American spiritual, known across its long history under several names, among them “Hold On” and “Keep Your Hand on the Plow.” Its title and central image come from the Gospel of Luke, in which keeping a hand to the plow stands as a figure for steadfast faith.
The song is old. It appears in print as early as the 1910s and reached records around 1930 in a version by the Hall Johnson choir. Like most spirituals it has no single author; the plow imagery carries a double weight, evoking both the field labor of enslaved African Americans and the call to spiritual perseverance. In the twentieth century the song took on new force as a freedom song, sung widely during the civil rights movement.
Its driving, repetitive structure — one steady exhortation to hold on — made it a natural for many traditions, and it passed readily into bluegrass gospel.
