Rick: Wonderful suggestion! Thank you! I have bought it.

Roy Acuff (Hank Williams’s musical hero) features in that splendid DVD I

advertised in my October diary–this one.

Roy was aged 86 at the

time that DVD was produced, but he gives a fine lusty rendering of the

second verse of “I Saw the Light.”

You are not kidding about the unblinking frankness of country/gospel music

in the matters of God and death. Here are the lyrics to “The Angel of

Death” from my Hank Williams gospel CD. Take a stiff drink before reading.

THE ANGEL OF DEATH
In the great book of John you’re warned of the day
When you’ll be laid beneath the cold clay;
The angel of death will come from the sky
And claim your poor soul when the time comes to die.
Chorus:
When the angel of death comes down after you
Can you smile and say that you have been true?
Can you truthfully say with your dying breath
That you’re ready to meet the angel of death?
When the lights all grow dim and the dark shadows creep
And then your loved ones are gathered to weep,
Can you face them and say with your dying breath
That you’re ready to meet the angel of death?
[Chorus]
When the angel of death etc.
Hank pronounces “poor” as “purr.” Fred Rose tried to get him to say “poor,”
but Hank wouldn’t. “That’s the way we say it, where I come from…”