Being in That Number

Our two youngest kids, ages 9 and 12, sing in a local community choir where they learn a lot of wonderful old songs that otherwise they might not be exposed to. One day we were all going somewhere in the car when they when they launched into When the Saints Go Marching In. At one point it started to die down so I tried to reinvigorate it by singing "Oh when the Day of Judgment comes...I want to be there in that number..."

They had no idea what I was singing and tried to tell me this was not part of the song. Do you realize what happens when you remove that verse? Suddenly an explicit limitation becomes an implied universality. The song becomes a celebration of everyone being "in that number." The excluded verse is politically incorrect because it implies, accurately, that before God not everyone is equal.

I remember even as a kid how that verse seemed to tie the package together. It was clearly central to the entire point of the song. There will be a number. Some will be in it. Others won't. That is the point of the song, and the truth and the tragedy of the fall.