“Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning” is an African American spiritual whose central image comes from the parable of the wise and foolish virgins in the Gospel of Matthew. Ten bridesmaids wait with lamps for a bridegroom who is late; when he arrives at midnight, all of them trim their lamps, but only the five who brought spare oil are ready to follow him to the wedding before the door is shut. The parable ends with a warning to keep watch, since no one knows the day or the hour.
One of the earliest printed versions comes from Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the colonel of the First South Carolina Volunteers, a Union regiment recruited from enslaved men during the Civil War. Higginson wrote down the songs his soldiers sang in camp, and the chapter on spirituals in his Army Life in a Black Regiment, first published in 1869, includes one he titled “This World Almost Done,” built on the command to keep the lamp trimmed and burning. He offered it as an example of songs that dwelt on patience in this life.
The song is in call-and-response form, and its verses change from singer to singer. In a common version each leader’s line is answered by the group: hardship is nearly at an end, the road to heaven lies ahead, a brother and a sister are urged to hold on to their faith, and every verse returns to praise for the Lord’s work.
Blind Willie Johnson recorded it on 5 December 1928, and his is the earliest recording SecondHandSongs lists. The Reverend Gary Davis recorded it on 29 January 1956, and Hot Tuna recorded a version in April 1971 for First Pull Up, Then Pull Down. Hot Rize brought it to bluegrass on Traditional Ties (Sugar Hill, 1985), recorded at Colorado Sound Recording in Denver with Tim O’Brien singing lead and Nick Forster, Pete Wernick and Charles Sawtelle answering him. O’Brien recorded it again with Darrell Scott for their 2000 duo album Real Time, playing bouzouki to Scott’s guitar, and Tony Furtado and Dirk Powell included it on their 1999 Rounder album.
