Count Your Blessings

post date: November 26, 2008

This morning I decided to find a version of “Count Your Blessings,” a gospel song written in 1897 by Johnson Oatman and published in a collection called Songs for Young People. As I perused YouTube and GodTube, I found several other songs by the same name, including the one made famous by Bing Crosby that includes the famous line, “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep.” That’s a totally different song–but well worth a listen.

This particular version of the gospel song was recorded by the International Staff Songsters of the Salvation Army during a 2007 concert in Sweden. It’s hard not to smile and clap and sing along with this rollicking, uplifting presentation. In case you don’t know the words to the song, you can find them here. 

I love it when the director turns around and starts clapping along with the music. And those women on the piano do a little ragtime between verses. If this video doesn’t get you going on the day before Thanksgiving, I don’t know what will. Those Salvation Army folks really know how to play and sing with heart and soul. I think William Booth, their founder, would like this. I know I do.