Track 1: Performed by White Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church of Mounds, Illinois (November 30, 1954): RP WMP MP3
Track 2: Performed by Sally Rodgers, Claudia Shmidt, Howie Bursen on the CD Closing the Distance (1987): RP WMP MP3
"Ezekiel Saw the Wheel" began its life as an African American spiritual. This song is based on a passage from Old Testament in which Ezekiel, a prophet living in exile in Babylon during the 500s BC, was sent a vision from God. According to the text, as God spoke to him, in addition to seeing four winged "creatures" in the middle of a thundercloud, Ezekiel also saw
four wheels touching the ground, one beside each of them. All four wheels were alike; each one shone like a precious stone, and each had another wheel intersecting it at right angles, so that the wheels could move in any of the four directions. The rims of the wheels were covered with eyes. Whenever the creatures moved, the wheels moved with them...the wheels did exactly what the creatures did, because the creatures controlled them. So every time the creatures moved or stopped or rose in the air, the wheels did exactly the same (Ezekiel 1: 15-21).
In the same way that this story has inspired different kinds of visual art, it lives on into the present in a variety of musical contexts.
Track 1 featuring a group of singers from the White Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, is announced by Ms. Geraldine Smith. The group delivers a dignified and stately version of this song accompanied by piano. This is followed by a solo performance of the same song by Mr. Lewis Flowers, again with piano accompaniment.
Track 2 is a contemporary version performed in a cappella. The driving tempo and repetitive phrases of this version suggest the circular motion of the spinning wheels in Ezekiel's vision.
Track 1: RP WMP MP3
Track 2: RP WMP MP3
For more information, please visit the official Words, Wood & Wire site.
