"Down by the Riverside" is an African-American spiritual whose roots lie in the period before the American Civil War, when it was already sung as a peace song under the title "Gwine-a study war no more". No single author is known, and it is credited to traditional. It was first published in 1918 in Plantation Melodies (Rodeheaver Company, Chicago). The earliest known recording is by the Fisk University Jubilee Singers, made on 29 December 1920 and first released in 1922 by Columbia as "You Hear the Lambs A-Cryin'". Its refrain echoes Isaiah 2:4, and the river suggests baptism and the crossing of the Jordan into the Promised Land. In the 1940s and 1950s it became a jazz standard, and during the Vietnam War it was taken up as an anti-war protest song. Later versions include those by Louis Armstrong, Elvis Presley, Lead Belly, Etta James, the Golden Gate Quartet, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Playing for Change (2014). A 1953 version by Bing Crosby and Gary Crosby reached No. 28 in the UK. Lyrics vary from one version to another.
