Peter, Go Ring Them Bells

Lyrics

The lyrics below are preserved exactly as documented in nineteenth-century primary sources. Dialect, spelling, and phrasing reflect the living tradition of the communities who created and sang these songs. Standardizing the language would erase the historical record. See our editorial standards for more.

Historical Context

"Peter, Go Ring Them Bells" is a spiritual of glad tidings — the bells of heaven pealed out by the apostle Peter, traditionally pictured as the keeper of heaven's gate. It was among the songs collected in the Hampton Institute's Cabin and Plantation Songs (1874) and was later documented in the Fisk repertoire and anthologized by James Weldon Johnson in his second volume of spirituals.

The song's imagery of ringing bells announcing news "from heaven" belongs to the tradition's rich vocabulary of celestial communication — trumpets, bells, trains, and chariots that carry word between earth and glory.

Cultural Significance

At the heart of the song is the refrain's joyful announcement: "I heard from heaven today." To hear from heaven is to receive assurance — of God's presence, of the welcome awaiting the faithful, of reunion beyond death. The bells Peter rings are the bells of that good news, sounding out over the world.

The verses turn, tenderly, to the question of separation: "I wonder where my mother is gone... where my brother is gone." For an enslaved people torn apart by the sale of family members — mothers and children, brothers and sisters scattered by the market in human beings — the longing to know where loved ones had "gone" was among the deepest of griefs. The song answers that grief with the ringing of heaven's bells: the assurance that those who have gone are gathered home, and that the separated will be reunited in glory.

This binding of joy and loss — the bells of celebration ringing over the ache of separation — is characteristic of the tradition, which rarely offered comfort without acknowledging the sorrow it addressed.

Scholarly Notes

The song's inclusion in the 1874 Hampton collection documents its currency in the years just after emancipation and its place in the Sea Island and coastal traditions from which many Hampton students came.

James Weldon Johnson placed "Peter, Go Ring Them Bells" among the songs of glad news and heavenly communication, noting how the tradition personified the apostles and angels as active messengers between the worlds.

The song has been arranged for choirs and recorded by numerous artists — including a well-known interpretation by Odetta — and its bright, ringing refrain has kept it a favorite of the concert and folk repertoires.