What Could I Do If It Wasn't for the Lord?

DESCRIPTION: Chorus: ("What could I do"(5x) "without the comfort of his word? What could I see, ... say, How would I feel, ... pray, What could I do if it wasn't for the Lord?") Verses end "What could I do if it wasn't for the Lord" (see notes)
AUTHOR: Thomas A. Dorsey (1899-1993)
EARLIEST DATE: 1947 (recording, Sister Marie Knight)
KEYWORDS: nonballad religious Jesus
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: _Great Gospel Songs of Thomas A. Dorsey_ (Milwaukee: Hal Leonard Corp, 1968), pp. 48-50 "What Could I Do If It Wasn't for the Lord" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Liddle Hines, "What Could I Do?" (on USMississippi01)
Sister Marie Knight, "What Could I Do" (Haven 517, 1947)
The Swan Silvertones, "What Could I Do" (2005, on "The Swan Silvertones--1946-1951," Acrobat ADDCD 3004)
NOTES [168 words]: Verses describe Jesus as "my bread, my water, my life ..." and "my mother, my father ..." and say Jesus "makes me strong" and when "friend moves out, my Jesus moves in." - BS
All of those quotes are interesting. In John 6:35, Jesus says he is the "bread of life," and the whole communion ritual refers to eating the bread that is Jesus's body. Baptism is done in water; Jesus offers living water in the early part of John 4; Jesus's followers are born of "water and spirit/breath/wind" (υδατος και πνευματος, hydatos kai pneumatos) in John 3:5; in John 7:38, believers' hearts flow with "living water"; when the soldier pierces Jesus's side in John 19:34, what flows from it is "blood and water." As for "life," references to Jesus as life are so frequent that we can probably content ourselves with John 11:25, "I am the resurrection and the life" (interestingly, three significant early copies of this verse omit "and the life," but Thomas Dorsey wouldn't have known that and likely wouldn't have cared). - RBW
Last updated in version 5.1
File: RcWCIDWL

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