“Wayfaring Stranger” by the Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra

While the Johnny Cash tune “Wayfaring Stranger” has been covered by everyone from Jack White to Emmylou Harris, few have been able to match the soulful, plaintive version created by the Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra. With Rebekka Nilsson’s powerful voice rising above a chorus of strings, the song’s opening lines take on an otherworldly quality.

I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger
Traveling through this world below
There is no sickness, no toil nor danger
In that bright land to which I go

More than an acceptance of the natural evolution toward death, the song reveals an eagerness to find peace beyond the troubles of this world.

I’m going there to see my Father
And all my loved ones who’ve gone on
I’m just going over Jordan
I’m just going over home

Despite their Norwegian roots, Nilsson and co-founding band member Joakim Borgen were inspired by the Belgian film “The Broken Circle Breakdown” to make bluegrass music. “The mixture of pain, tragedy, longing and hope in this film, and in this music, pierced our hearts,” Nilsson told Bluegrass Today.

Norwegian Folk Meets Bluegrass in “Wayfaring Stranger”

The duo saw similarities between Nordic folk music and the Americana music of the ‘60s and ‘70s — long an influence for Nilsson. “The fiddle — or more precisely the Hardanger fiddle, a Norwegian version that includes a double set of resonating strings — is very central to Norwegian folk music, along with a number of other harp-like string instruments,” Borgen said in the Bluegrass Today article. “But above all, the human voice and the heartfelt and often melancholy melodies, with its trills and its blue notes, and the telling stories of loss and longing, is a key similarity between the two.”

The pair — Nilsson on vocals and Borgen on mandolin — are joined by various other band members on fiddle, guitar, banjo, upright bass, dobro and accordion.

“I think that bluegrass, like most old folk music and like the early classical music of the Renaissance, shares something that speaks very directly to the human soul,” Nilsson said. “It is simple, but virtuosic, heartfelt, but never pompous, and it communicates a longing that sits at the core of what it means to be human.”

That sense of longing is fully elicited by Hayde Bluegrass Orchestra’s rendition of “Wayfaring Stranger,” which you can watch below.