According to her mother she first heard this song while watching Pete Seeger’s public television show, “Rainbow Quest” as it was the opening and closing theme. The family owned many Pete Seeger albums and surely it was also on one of them.

Written in 1958, years later Seeger said he realized that the piece actually incorporated the “…rewritten melody of ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’ … You can see how the folk process has been aided by a bad memory,” he one recounted.

”Regardless, “Oh, Had I a Golden Thread,” with its themes of love, loss, redemption and transcendence, was cited by Eva Cassidy (one of our favorites) as her favorite song, although, curiously, it was never part of her live repertoire. Unplanned, unrehearsed and tossed in at the end of a recording session, today’s selection was incongruously included on her self-released album “Live at Blues Alley” with the record’s other songs recorded live at the Blues Alley Nightclub in Georgetown.

Released only months before her death, she felt that this impromptu studio “knees up,” so fitting for a Memorial Day Weekend, was one of her finest performances.

LISTEN TO TODAY’S SELECTION – Sunday 27 May

Oh Had I a Golden Thread

Oh, had I a golden thread

And a needle so fine

I would weave a magic spell

Of a rainbow design

Of a rainbow design

In it I would weave the courage

Of women giving birth

And in it I would weave the innocence

Of the children of all the earth

Children of all the earth

I want to show my brothers and sisters

My rainbow design

Cause I would bind up this sorry world

With hand and heart and mind

Oh, hand and heart and mind

Oh, had I a golden thread

And a needle so fine

I would weave a magic spell

Of a rainbow design

Of a rainbow design