I Wonder as I Wander

I Wonder As I Wander by John Jacob Niles, arranged by Keith Christopher for SAB chorus with Piano accompaniment and optional Flute.

This Christian folk hymn was inspired by a songheardby Niles at a fundraising meeting for evangelicals which he attended in Murphy, North Carolina. Niles wrote of the moment he first heard the tune:

'A girl had stepped out to the edge of thelittleplatform attached to the automobile. She began to sing. Her clothes were unbelievable dirty and ragged, and she, too, was unwashed. Her ash-blond hair hung down in long skeins.... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and inheruntutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song'.

Niles requested that the girl repeat the fragment seven times, paying her a quarterperperformance, and left with 'three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material—and a magnificent idea'. He completed his composition on October 4, 1933 and I Wonder As I Wander wasfirstperformed on December 19, 1933, at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.