You Don’t Need No Ticket

“People get ready
For the train to Jordan
Picking up passengers
From coast to coast” – People Get Ready (Mayfield) © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music

“In the slave period here, one of the things that was prominent was the song – how the songs extolled the glory of God . . . You know that. They needed it. Some people were so low that they had to look up to see the ground. Where were they living? On the other side of the tracks. But what will God do? God will build a bridge over the tracks for me to get across”. – Rev Earnest Palmer – Deep South, by Paul Theroux

Curtis Mayfield was born on June 3, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois. One of five children, Mayfield’s father left the family when Curtis was five. His mother (and maternal grandmother) moved the family into several Chicago public housing projects before settling into Cabrini–Green during his teen years. His mother taught him to play piano, and he was encouraged by his mother and grandmother to embrace gospel music. One of his earliest experiences performing was with the Northern Jubilee Gospel Singers at this aunt’s church.

*Cabrini Green Housing Projects, Chicago*

In 1956, Mayfield joined his high school friend Jerry Butler’s group, The Roosters, to which he contributed his own original compositions. Two years later the group became The Impressions. With a varying lineup of members, The Impressions had a number of hits in the early 1960s, including their recording of “Amen”, an updated version of the old gospel tune, which was included on the soundtrack of the Sidney Poitier film, Lilies of the Field. The Impressions would reach the height of their popularity in the mid–to- late 60s with a string of Mayfield compositions that included “Keep On Pushing”, “It’s All Right”, the up-tempo “Talking about My Baby”, “Woman’s Got Soul” and “People Get Ready”.

“People, get ready
There’s a train a-coming
You don’t need no baggage
You just get on board” – People Get Ready (Mayfield)

“People Get Ready”, the title track of The Impressions’ album, People Get Ready, eventually became the group’s biggest hit. Released in 1965, it peaked at number 3 on the Billboard R&B Chart and number 14 on the Billboard Pop Chart. Mayfield said he originally wrote the song in response to both the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the deadly church bombing of Bloody Sunday in Birmingham. Martin Luther King Jr. chose “People Get Ready” as the unofficial anthem of the Civil Rights Movement and often used the song to get people marching or to calm and comfort them.

Robert F. Darden, a contributor to the Dallas News, comments about Mayfield’s song: “The allusion to the railroad is no accident. It immediately resonates not just with the spirituals, but with older blues songs as well, where references to trains quickly show up in the lyrics. A host of writers have noted, during the Civil War and Reconstruction, railroads still evoked awe and wonder among African Americans in the South. The unofficial pathways to freedom in the North were called the Underground Railroad, where passengers were summoned by the spiritual ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’. And when freedom did come, those still-magical vehicles enabled the formerly enslaved people to join in the Great Migration north”.

“All you need is faith
To hear the diesels humming
Don’t need no ticket
You just thank the Lord” – People Get Ready (Mayfield)

According to Curtis Mayfield’s son Todd, their ancestors had been enslaved in Louisiana and carried their stories with them on the Illinois Central Railroad to the South Side projects of Chicago. Mayfield’s grandmother, Annie Bell, was a devoutly religious woman and encouraged her grandson’s love of music, especially gospel. Mayfield himself says that “People Get Ready” probably came from the subconscious “preachings of my grandmothers and most ministers when they reflect from the Bible.”

Social commentator Juan Williams has been quoted as saying, “The train that is coming in the song speaks to a chance for redemption – the long sought chance to rise above racism, to stand apart from despair and any desire for retaliation – an end to the cycle of pain.”

Music critic Stanley Crouch wrote, “by saying, ‘There’s a train a-comin’, get ready,’ that was like saying, OK, so regardless of what happens, get yourself together for this because you are going to get a chance. Your chance is coming.”

“Faith is the key
Open the doors and board them
There’s hope for all
Among those loved the most” – People Get Ready (Mayfield)

Robert F. Darden also writes, “’People Get Ready’ has been interpreted as both an allusion to the religious apocalypse known as the second coming in many Christian denominations and as a warning to those who oppose equality and civil rights in the modern day. And, as is the case with the best songwriters, both interpretations can be right”.

“There ain’t no room
For the hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind
Just to save his own

“Have pity on those
Whose chances are thinner
‘Cause there’s no hiding place
From the kingdom’s throne” – People Get Ready (Mayfield)

Curtis Mayfield’s song has stood the test of time. In 2000 it was chosen by a panel of 20 songwriters – including Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson – as among the top 10 songs of all time. They ranked it at number nine. In 2004, Rolling Stone placed it at number 24 in its 500 greatest hits of all time, and also placed it at number 20 on their list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. The song was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. “People Get Ready” was named as one of the Top 10 Best Songs of All Time by Mojo music magazine, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. In 2016, the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry due to its “cultural, historic, or artistic significance”. It has been recorded and performed by dozens of artists.

*Singer Curtis Mayfield (L) poses with the first annual Soul Train Quincy Jones Award for outstanding career achievement. /Photo by Fred Prouser REUTERS REUTERS*

In August 1990, Curtis Mayfield was injured when lighting equipment fell on him during an outdoor concert in Brooklyn. Paralyzed from the neck down, and no longer able to play the guitar, he continued composing, singing and recording music. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995 and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in of March 1999. He died from complications of type 2 diabetes on December 26, 1999.

Todd Mayfield, who is his father’s biographer, writes, “Though he isn’t here, my father is still part of that fight. His music speaks as powerfully to the times we live in as it did to his own. His songs remain vital, uncompromising, and true. His message endures — a message he refused to abandon even in the darkest of times. If he were alive today, he’d urge us to keep on pushing, to never give up, to get ready for something better. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.”

“So people get ready
For the train a-comin‘
You don’t need no ticket
You just get on board” – People Get Ready (Mayfield) © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music