Troublesome Waters - guitar chords and comments

Lyrics without distraction HERE

The song was first released on Sun label March 1954, recorded by Howard Seratt. In 1964 Johnny Cash was next, rounding up his CBS album "I Walk the Line" with a beautiful version, credited Maybelle Carter, Ezra J. Carter and Dixie Deen - two members of and one affiliate to the famous Carter Family. If this song had been released as a single and become a hit, it could have ended up in court, because this is deliberately wrong! And this error has been transmitted.
The song was composed by Reverend Ivy Ernest Rippetoe, pastor of the Washington Street Baptist Church and former president of the Texas State Singing Convention, born 1892 in Comanche County, died 1962 in Stephenville Hospital. From his obituary:
«He was the son of the late Mr. and Mrs. Edd Rippetoe, pioneer settlers in the county. Mr. Rippetoe was married to Myrtle Hammitt in 1912 and they were the parents of three children. One son preceded him in death in 1913. For a number of years Rev. Rippetoe taught singing schools in Erath and Comanche counties. He was a member of the Original Stamps Quartet. Rippetoe also composed many religious songs which were published by the Stamps-Baxter Music Co.»
The lyrics were written by "Mrs. J.B. Karnes" aka "Mrs. Jess O’Brian Karnes", nee Beuna Ora Bryant - they married in 1911. She was born February 8, 1889 in Comanche County, Texas and died October 7 1974 in Tarrant County, Texas. A gospel songwriter, many of her songs were published by Stamps-Baxter.
And SO IT WAS. It looks like if the Carter family ever tasted a song, they swallowed it.   I have never intended to be religious, and I quite often dislike songs because of their religious content. But, being agnostic, I've often felt some power stronger than myself. In hard situations, I have said prayers to that "power" ... which I cannot discribe or give a name. Sometimes it helped; sometimes not. Anyway, I'm still alive, and able to bring further to you this manifestation of a small human being in trouble.   I heard Cash perform it live in "Njårdhallen", Oslo, Norway in September 1971 - with mother Maybelle still alive, playing her autoharp ... in her wheelchair. That woman, her family ... are history. So is Johnny Cash. But they will never be forgotten, as long as the grass shall grow. They left us a treasure of folk songs, that will be maintained in any human world ... where humans and human feelings are still most important. And we want it to be that way, don't we?

A                        D            A
troublesome waters much blacker than night
                 F#m                       E
are hiding from view the harbour's bright light
E7             A           D              A
tossed on the turmoil of life's troubled sea
                F#m           E       A    A7
I cried to my Saviour "Have mercy on me"

D9sus4           D                         A
then gently I'm feeling the touch of his hand
            F#m                E
guiding my boat in safely to land
E7           A       D              A
leading the way to heaven's bright shore
                    F#m         E         A
where troublesome waters I'm fearing no more