All of Us Sparrows
by Anthony Esolen
The year is 1949, the place, New York City. In a big room are a Broadway producer and a woman novelist who, if she ever harbored religious faith, seems to have hidden it from everyone or to have drowned it in a bad marriage that resulted in divorce, remarriage, and the suicide of her husband, not to mention several illicit relationships and a lot of alcohol. Also there is a regular mountain of a woman, an African American. She, too, has led a hard and rocky life, much of it as a result of the wickedness of other people—bigotry and poverty of course, and a rape when she was only thirteen. They are trying to persuade her to play the lead in a Broadway production of the woman’s novel.
But she wants to impose two conditions. First, she will tone down the bitterness of her part as the novelist-playwright has written it. Second, she will not sing a Russian lullaby, as is specified in the second act. “I had never heard tell of a colored woman,” she would later write, “especially from Georgia, who had ever sung a Russian ditty to a child.”
“What, then, do you want to sing?” the novelist asked, crushing her cigarette in an ash tray.
“The song I’ve sung all my life,” she replied. It would be perfect for the part. But, she added, there was a certain name in the song, and she would sing it with all the tenderness she felt, even though some people might bristle at it.
“Sing it,” said the novelist. “Sing it through.”
Anchored in Hope
So Ethel Waters sang to Carson McCullers a gospel song written by a white woman back in 1905, though you’d guess it was a Negro spiritual from years before, as it expresses firm hope in Jesus in the darkest of times. She sang “His Eye Is on the Sparrow.”
When she finished, McCullers was in her lap, weeping.
So did the magnificent black actress and singer carry the day against cynicism and unbelief. The show ran for almost two years, and Waters, with her co-stars Julie Harris and the little boy Brandon de Wilde, ended up reprising their roles in the 1952 film The Member of the Wedding, a film I judge to be better than the book, and precisely because Waters, as the black cook Berenice, anchors the tragic action in the realm of hope—hope in God’s providence and his kingdom.
Attend closely to the faces of these three characters when Waters sings the song: the shirtless little boy in overalls who complains that he’s feeling ill, though nobody believes him; the awkward and difficult teenage girl whom nobody understands; and the cook, whose advice nobody takes. Their singing of the refrain together at the end is, to my mind, the greatest single moment of religious song in the history of Hollywood.
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on Music from the online archives
33.3—May/June 2020
Bach's Cantata BWV 106, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbesteZeit (God's time is the very best time) by Ken Myers
more from the online archives
20.8—October 2007
The Deep & Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education by David Lyle Jeffrey
19.8—October 2006
on the Good Father’s Quiet Desperation by Russell D. Moore
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
