Lyrics
Get you ready, there's a meeting here tonight,
Come along, there's a meeting here tonight,
I know you by your daily walk,
There's a meeting here tonight.
Camp meeting in the wilderness,
There's a meeting here tonight,
I know it's among the Methodist,
There's a meeting here tonight.
My father says it is the best,
There's a meeting here tonight,
To live and die a Methodist,
There's a meeting here tonight.
There's fire in the East, there's fire in the West,
There's a meeting here tonight,
I know it's among the Methodist,
There's a meeting here tonight.
Public domain hymn text. Traditional African American spiritual, author unknown.
The Story Behind the Hymn
'There's a Meeting Here Tonight' is a traditional African American spiritual with no documented single author, developed within Southern Black communities and passed down orally before being collected and preserved by folklorists and archivists, including a 1921 arrangement by composer R. Nathaniel Dett.
According to oral tradition documented by historians of the spiritual, songs with this kind of plain, repeated announcement sometimes served a double purpose under slavery, functioning as a genuine call to worship while also quietly signaling the time and fact of a planned gathering to those who understood its coded use.
Its recurring line, 'I know you by your daily walk,' identifies belonging not by formal membership or appearance but by consistent, observable conduct, judging character over time rather than by a single moment or claim.
The song's references to camp meetings and to being 'a Methodist' place it within the specific world of nineteenth-century American revivalism, when large outdoor camp meetings, often lasting several days, brought different denominations and communities together for extended preaching and singing.
Its structure, a short new line paired every time with the same fixed refrain, 'there's a meeting here tonight,' was built for call-and-response singing, letting a leader introduce new details while a full congregation answered with the same familiar words.
That plain, repetitive announcement, calling people simply to 'come along' and gather, reflects the spiritual's most basic function: to summon a community together for worship, regardless of whatever additional, coded meaning it may also have carried.
The song remains part of the documented spiritual tradition preserved in folklore and choral collections, valued both for its simple communal invitation and, as with many spirituals, for the layered history it carries beneath its plain surface.
