“People Get Ready”

Artist: Curtis Mayfield

Music / Lyrics by Curtis Mayfield

Label: ABC-Paramount, 1964

The image of the “train” that carries people to freedom, redemption, or salvation is a common metaphor in gospel and other American and African-American musicsmusic. The train in “People Get Ready” also carried Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions right across the divide between the gospel and pop music charts. The song was released in 1965, in the wake of the March on Washington and a number of other more violent events in the history of the Civil Rights movement, including the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that left four4 young girls dead. It’s a song of great faith and great hope – a sermon set to music –--- and it touched the hearts of people of all races, creeds and colors. Both the lyrics and the music of “People Get Ready” have been quoted in other songs dozens of times in the decades since its release.

Musical style notes

Regardless of its classification in the soul or pop category, “People Get Ready” is stylistically a gospel hymn. The main characteristic of a hymn is that it consists of multiple verses, where each verse has the same structure, length and musical content, but the verses have different texts. (I am using the term “hymn” in the sense of its structural, musical definition –-- not all the songs in “hymnals” are technically “hymns.”) The Impressions provide the backup choir, singing the background “Hmmm” vocal, doubling the final lines, and singing call- and- response with Mayfield.

The vocal style, including the harmonized a cappella vocal at the end, is pure gospel. The instrumental interludes and the key change, which heightens the energy before verse 3, are also elements that are shared between both pop music and gospel arrangements.

Musical “Road Map”

Timings / Comments / Lyrics
0:00-0:14 / Introduction;
oOrchestra, vocals humming “mmmm.””
0:14-0:40 / Verse 1
Note that there are two vocalists singing lead in a call-and-response style, and background vocals that join at the last words of the phrases. / People get ready,
there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage,
you just get on board…
0:40-0:48 / Interlude: guitar and chimes
0:48-1:14 / Verse 2 / So people get ready,
for the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
coast to coast…
1:14-1:28 / Iinterlude:, featuring guitar and chimes, changes key
1:28-1:55 / Verse 3
Note the background “Hmmmm” vocals;
Note also that the lead vocal is sung by one singerone singer sings the lead vocal, with the others coming in only on the last line of each phrase., / There ain’t no room
for the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind
just to save his own…
1:55-2:16 / Verse 4 (same as Verse 1)
Note that this verse is sung in unison by multiple singers, who then harmonize on the last phrase. / People get ready, there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board… People get ready,
there’s a train comin’
You don’t need no baggage,
you just get on board…
2:16-2:24 / Dramatic pause at “don’t need no ticket” –
a cappella harmonized vocals follow on the words “You Just Thank the Lord.” / …don’t need no ticket…
You just Thank the Lord.
2:24-2:36 / Instruments re-enter as the singers hold the last chord of the vocal part, beginning with strings, followed by orchestra, guitar, and chimes; they play one more phrase and then cadence (end on a final chord) at 2:30.