Been looking for this for ages and it's just appeared on youtube.

My god, where do I start.
The songs called "General William Booth enters into heaven"
1:Followed a link from here to a Julian Cope interview (the I wasn't Mark E. Smiths drug dealer one) and the writer noted Julian had a portrait of vachel Lindsay on his wall. This is one of Lindsays songs, rewritten by the avant garde Charles Ives, who in the late 1800s was writting extremely dissonant stuff. Lindsay, I seem to recall, didn't write songs so much as poems with performance notes. Ives wrote it in 1916, but very seldom heard any of his stuff performed, this was one of his first recordings (1934).

2: It's about the founder of the Salvation army but warts and all for me encapsulates the movement fevered and sometimes "cold as charity". I'm still not sure if Ives or Radiana Pazmor, the singer here approved of them, but that's when it's true art isn't it, as Lou Reed said of the song Heroin, "it's not for it or against it, It's just about it."

3: Listening to it on the crappy laptop speakers I wasn't sure it was the same recording but at about 1:30 the magic starts. My god it is mad! "Big voiced lassies made their bajoes bang. Bang bang bang their marching banjos bang and fanatical they shrieked and said (they shrieked!) and said "Are you, are you washed in the blood in the blood of the la amb haha ham."
Check out that last note, I'm not sure if the singer is flat or its just one of it's one of Ives microtones.

I had a tape of this ages ago and lost it, searching everyone elses version ever since and they all sound pompous as fuck yanks singing charming classics.
Radiana Pazmor was not broadway and this is one of the most amazing performances of last century. Thus far unreleased digital, unless you have the 1976 l.p. "when i have sung my songs, american art song 1900-1940" this is the only chance you will have to hear it.

Link is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ7ObTBwmFo


If your babbled here's the lyrics:
Booth led boldly with his big bass drum
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)
The Saints smiled gravely and they said, "He's come,"
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

Walking lepers followed rank on rank,
Lurching bravos from the ditches dank
Drabs the alleyways and drug fiends pale
Minds still passion ridden, soul flowers frail:
Vermin eaten saints with moldy breath,
Unwashed legions with the ways of Death
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

Ev'ry slum had sent its half a score
The world round over. (Booth had groaned for more).
Ev'ry banner that the wide world flies
Bloomed with glory and transcendent dyes,
Big voiced lassies made their banjoes bang,
Tranced, fanatical they shrieked and sang;
"Are you? Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?"

Hallelulah! It was queer to see
Bull necked convicts with that land made free.
Loons with trumpets a blare, blare, blare,
On, on, upward thro' the golden air!
(Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?)

Jesus came from the court house door,
Stretched his hands above the passing poor.
Booth saw not, but led his queer ones
Round and round the mighty courthouse square.
Yet! in an instant all that blear review
Marched on spotless, clad in raiment new.

The lame were straightened, withered limbs uncurled,
And blind eyes opened on a new, sweet world.
Are you washed in the blood of the lamb?