Words: , in Songs of the Soul No. 2, by James M. Black (Cin­cin­na­ti, Ohio: Cur­tis & Jen­nings, 1896).

Music: .

The song When the Saints Are March­ing In…is NOT the tra­di­tion­al When the Saints Go March­ing In. Even though the ti­tles dif­fer by a word, sev­er­al au­thor­i­tat­ive music ref­er­ence books list Pur­vis and Black as the 1896 au­thors of When the Saints Go March­ing In. As a con­se­quence, ma­ny song col­lect­ions in a va­ri­e­ty of for­mats—book, re­cord, tape and CD—wrong­ly as­sign Ka­tha­rine E. Purv­is and James M. Black the cre­dit for this Amer­i­can folk fa­vo­rite. In truth, the pre­cise ori­gins of When the Saints Go March­ing In is not known. At this point it is prob­ab­ly not pos­si­ble to trace the orig­in­al source of this er­ror, or to cor­rect it from spread­ing. Longtime mu­sic pro­fes­sor at Ly­com­ing College, Ma­ry Lan­don Russ­ell con­fus­es the two songs in her 1957 mas­ters the­sis at Penn State Un­i­ver­si­ty. The ear­li­est au­thor­i­ta­tive ref­er­ence book with the er­ror ap­pears to be The Great Song The­saur­us by Ro­ger Lax and Fred­er­ick Smith, pub­lished by Ox­ford Un­i­ver­si­ty Press. On page 380 of the 1984 first edi­tion, the au­thors wrong­ly at­trib­ute When the Saints Go March­ing In to Ka­thar­ine E. Pur­vis and James M. Black in 1896.

Thro’ the shining gate,
Where the angels wait,
When the saints are marching in,
The redeemed shall come,
And be crowned at home,
When the saints are marching in.

Refrain

When the saints are marching in,
When the saints are marching in,
Joyful songs of salvation thro’ the sky shall ring,
When the saints are marching in.

Parted friends shall meet,
On the golden street,
When the saints are marching in,
Spotless robes shall wear,
Victor’s palms shall bear,
When the saints are marching in.

Refrain

Ev’ry tongue and race
Shall extol God’s grace,
When the saints are marching in,
And the blood-washed throng
Shall repeat the song,
When the saints are marching in.

Refrain

“To the Lamb once slain,
But Who lives again,”
When the saints are marching in,
We shall offer praise
Thro’ eternal days,
When the saints are marching in.

Refrain