> Folk Music > Songs > Land on the Shore

Now Our Meeting Is Over / Land on the Shore

[ Roud 5716 ; Ballad Index WA084 ; trad.]

Sandy and Caroline Paton sang Now, My Friends, the Meeting Is Over in 1966 on their Folk-Legacy album Folksongs and Ballads. They noted:

This song, as it is sung by Mrs. Buna Hicks, closes Volume I of The Traditional Music of Beech Mountain, North Carolina (Folk-Legacy FSA-22). Mrs. Hicks said that the song was regularly used to end the religious services, or “camp meetings”, in her area, years ago, and that her mother was always asked to sing it. For other versions of the hymn, see Lomax (American Ballads and Folk Songs, p. 571) and Jackson (Another Sheaf of White Spirituals, p. 10).

We worked out the harmony for this Dorian tune quite by accident. Although the intervals seemed strange at first, after awhile harmonizing within the mode became quite natural.

The Fagans sang Stand by the Shore on their 2002 CD Turning Fine. They noted:

On a rowdy bus trip after one Victor Harbour Festival, Scott and Louisa Wise from Margaret River in Western Australia taught us this fabulous hymn. We were thrilled to sing it with the whole Wise family at the Canberra National Festival in 2002 and again in the spectacular acoustics of Western Australia’s Fairbridge chapel.

Cath and Phil Tyler sang Fathers Now Our Meeting Is Over in 2015 on their EP The Song-Crowned King.

Lady Maisery sang Land on the Shore in 2016 on their RootBeat CD Cycle. They noted:

An American farewell song that may have originally been a Shaker hymn. The tune for our version was collected by Sam P. Bayard of Pennsylvania and was included in John and Alan Lomax’s American Ballads and Folk Songs (1934). In the past year, this song has taken on a new relevance for us in light of the huge numbers of displaced people in the world hoping to find a new life on a safer shore.

This video shows Lady Maisery singing Land on the Shore at Downend Folk Club, Christ Church, Downend, Bristol on 18 November 2016:

Lyrics

Sandy and Caroline Paton sing Now, My Friends, the Meeting Is Over

Now, my friends, the meeting is over;
Fathers, we must part.
And, if I never see you any more,
I’ll love you in my heart.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
We will land on shore,
We will land on shore,
We will land on shore
And be safe forever more.

Now, my friends, the meeting is over;
Brothers, we must part.
And, if I never see you any more,
I’ll love you in my heart.

Now, my friends, the meeting is over;
Sisters, we must part.
And, if I never see you any more,
I’ll love you in my heart.

Lady Maisery sing Land on the Shore

Now my friends, our meeting is over,
Sisters we must part.
And if on Earth we meet no more
I’ll keep you in my heart.

Chorus (repeated after each verse):
And we’ll land on the shore
And we’ll land on that shore
And we’ll land on the shore
And be safe forevermore.

Now my friends, our meeting is over,
Brothers we must part.
And if on Earth we meet no more
I’ll keep you in my heart.

Now my friends, our meeting is over,
Fathers we must part.
And if on Earth we meet no more
I’ll keep you in my heart.

Now my friends, our meeting is over,
Mothers we must part.
And if on Earth we meet no more
I’ll keep you in my heart.