The Story of a Song
by Raymond M. Cable, ‘29
The Berea Alumnus, February, 1955
The story of “Berea Beloved” has been told in part to several people who have asked and it has been suggested that I tell it to all Bereans though the Alumnus. Unfortunately in this instance at least, I am neither a string saver no a methodical person and have lost or misplaced the original notations. Being no musician, I did not expect much to come of the song: otherwise pains would have been taken to preserve the scribbled first draft. My files are stuffed with things that will never mean as much to me.
Wilfred Johnston and I were roommates throughout our four years at Berea. Evidently, it got to be a habit for not long after we graduated we were roommates again, but that tie sharing an apartment in the Bronx. We were both doing graduate study at New York University, he in a romance languages and I in zoology. In the apartment was scarred old player piano with a few dog-eared rolls, mostly Gershwin. We were two county boys a long way from home, more than a little forlorn and smitten with nostalgia. Needless to say, we talked a lot about Berea and at that distance certain things about Berea were sharp in our memories, things that soon were to be put down sincerely in the words of “Berea Beloved/” But I am getting ahead of the story.
Wilfred and I were deeply impressed when we heard “The Palisades,” the Alma Mater song of New York University. One of us remarked, “I wish Berea had a song like that!”—one that, as Miss Jameson used to say (and no doubt still says), “gives you goose-flesh.” “The Only Berea” is a good song, a spirited and light –hearted song with a lilting melody but it was not what we had in mind. We liked Dr. Raine’s song, too, but the melody was not original, something that belonged only to Berea. Half-jokingly one of us suggested, “Why don’t we write such a song?”
The idea lay dormant for a time but one winter evening after a good dinner, we got an inspiration and before we went to be, “Berea Beloved” was born. First we worked on the melody after fitting the beginning cadence of the stanza to the work, Berea, and then, Beloved. It was a perfectly natural thing to do for we had heard that expression many times a “Berea the Beloved”: it was not original with us but said exactly what we wanted to say. Wilfred may wish to correct me in this statement by as I recall it was not over three hours of four at the most before the song was as it is now with but one change in the melody that comes later in this story.
The following year, I was in Berea and went to see President Hutchins at his home. As I remember, some-one was with me to whom I had confided that “Berea Beloved” existed and he gave me away. President Hutchins said, “Come with me.” We went to a small room off the hall where there was a piano and I played the song for him. From almost the beginning, he was humming along with the piano as if he had known the tune all his life. Soon he was singing in his study baritone, the voice that I had heard in New York over the nation-wide) then a new thing) radio network during the 75th anniversary celebration. How well I remember that voice dominating all others in, “How firm a foundation, Ye Saints of the Lord, “, in the old mountain tune.
To get back to the story, President Hutchins liked the song and arranged for me to meet with Miss Jameson so that she could take it down and put it in correct musical form. It was later published in that form. I shall never forget the first time I heard it sung by the students in Main Chapel a year or so later when I returned to Berea as a teacher.