Jesus Is Coming Soon

Gospel-blues artist Blind Willie Johnson had a brief career, recording 30 songs between 1927-30, but he is regarded as one of the most influential practitioners of the blues. The blind street-corner evangelist earned money by busking on the streets of Marlin, Texas, until Columbia Records invited him to lay down some tracks for them.

Johnson recorded this song in a temporary studio set up in Dallas on December 5, 1928; The lyrics are about the 1918 flu pandemic. An influenza pandemic of unprecedented venom, the Spanish flu swept the world between February 1918 and April 1920. The pandemic killed 50 to 100 million - three to five percent of the world's population - making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. The gospel song explains that the pandemic is God's warning "to turn away from the evil and seek the Lord and pray."

When Jack White performed the White Stripes track "Ball And Biscuit" on the October 10, 2020 episode of Saturday Night Live, he incorporated some lyrics from "Jesus Is Coming Soon." He included these timely lines, relevant to the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. The noble said to the people You better close your public schools Until the events of death has ending, you better close your churches too