Heavenly Aeroplane

Bob Nolan
Original copyright: 1940

The Heavenly Aeroplane 
Words and music by Bob Nolan, copyright 1940 by American Music, Inc.

One of these nights about twelve o’clock,
This ol’ world’s gonna reel and rock.
Sinners will tremble and cry with pain
And the Lord will come and get us in His aeroplane. 

Chorus:
Oh, ye weary of every tribe,
Get yo’ ticket for an aer’plane ride.
I see the Lord, He’s a comin’ for to reign
And take us all to glory in His aeroplane.

You may talk about an aut’mobile,
The lightning speed of the motor’s wheel;
We’ll break all records as we upward fly
In the aeroplane joy ride thru the sky.

There’ll be no punctures on a muddy road,
No broken wheels from the overload,
No sparks to trouble or cause delay
As we soar in rapture on the milky way.

Gotta get ready if you take this ride,
Quit all yo’ meanness and humble yo’ pride,
Furnish a life both bright and clean
And a good grade of oil for the flyin’ machine.

"Heavenly Aeroplane", published as a Bob Nolan song in Bob Nolan's Folio of Original Cowboy Classics No. 2, p. 46, is the slightly revised version of "The Heavenly Aeroplane" by J. S. McConnell © 1928 (p. 28 of Gospel Quintet Songs, Thoro Harris.) Thanks to research by a reader, we have discovered the sheet music for the original. Both melody and words are slightly different. Interestingly, it is Bob Nolan's words and melody that have survived and are used by current artists.

In a telephone conversation with John McConnell, son of J. S. McConnell, Elizabeth Drake McDonald discovered that the composer never did copyright any of his compositions. His son was unable to explain the presence of the song in the Thoro Harris hymnbook although he knew Thoro was a friend of his father's.

Evangelist John Saunders McConnell (1892-1966) was born in Seattle, WA. His father was a Rev. T. W. McConnell who came to Oregon with the first pioneers. He wrote the song when airplanes began to be seen in the skies and he taught it to his children. He had a large family and they loved to join in with him singing the lively tune.

Young John was about five years old when his father wrote the song and airplanes were still a source of wonder. The child had heard of them and looked at pictures of them but he had never seen a real airplane.

In 1920 in Walla Walla, WA, young John was playing in the yard when he saw his first airplane in the sky. He ran into the house shouting, "Mommy come quick! Jesus is here!"

Interestingly, J. S. McConnell did not register any of his compositions for copyright. He was content with writing them.
—John McConnell, March 8, 2010

In other words, American Music may have considered the original "The Heavenly Aeroplane" to be in the Public Domain when they placed the Nolan arrangement in Bob Nolan's Song Folio No. 2 in 1940.

Was Bob Nolan aware he was modifying copyrighted material? Very likely not. We consulted two respected music historians for their opinions.

Laurence Zwisohn had this to say:

Bob was very particular about his songs being original. You know the story of why he initially turned down “Riders in the Sky.” [Note: Bob felt that the melody of Stan Jones’ composition was too derivative of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”] However, Bob wasn’t averse to making modifications to existing songs. As a matter of fact, Lloyd [Perryman] told me he was convinced one of the verses to How Great Thou Art had been written by Bob.

My suspicion is that something like this transpired: The Pioneers recorded Heavenly Airplane for Vocalion in October 1937. On February 16, 1938, American Music copyrighted 8 of Bob’s songs including Heavenly Airplane. I haven’t checked but this might have been for one of the song folios. It appears that American never copyrighted Bob’s songs until either a recording was released (saving on the registration fee) or they were planning to publish copies of the song. I don’t think Tim had any involvement in this whatsoever. He and Bob were signed to American Music but American ran their own business.

As to whether copyrighting the song was legal: The 1928 copyright may not have been known to American. They didn’t have computers then and it was difficult to find out what was copyrighted. My guess is they knew the Pioneers had recorded the song for Vocalion and (perhaps) needing songs to fill out the folio they copyrighted Heavenly Airplane.

It is legal to copyright arrangements of traditional songs. By law you’re supposed to make some changes to the song but it’s impossible for copyright offices to keep track of such things so, all too often, artists copyright their “arrangement” of a Public Domain song even though they haven’t changed a thing.

I doubt Bob had any knowledge of the copyrighting of the song. He changed it to suit the Pioneers. Did he know there was a legitimate copyright in existence? It didn’t matter to him. The real test would be to check the Vocalion record and see if they listed a writer. If not, then Bob thought it was PD [public domain]. However, since it wasn’t released until some considerable time after it was recorded it might have his name listed since, by that time, American Music had copyrighted it. Should American have known there was a preexisting copyright? Logic says that a song about an airplane can’t have been traditional in 1938 when Wilbur and Orville didn't get up into the air until 1903.

The title of the Lem Giles song ("I Wonder if She Waits for Me Tonight") clearly shows that Bob did a major rewrite on it as opposed to the slight revision on Heavenly Airplane.  Copyrighting the revised version made sense since he made major changes.  Copyrighting the slight revision of Airplane just doesn't sound like something Bob would have approved of. I don’t see Choir Boy listed by either ASCAP or BMI and Lem Giles isn’t listed as a writer with either society.

I seem to recall Lloyd mentioning that Bob liked one of Lem's songs and wanted to rewrite it.  As I recall the song turned out to be "Wendin' My Way To Wyomin'".

Lawrence Hopper observed:

We don't know that Bob had the songbook in which it was published. Tim may have had a standard arrangement of the song in his possession as part of his music business activities and if there was no date or publisher info on that sheet it is possible Bob took it to be a PD [public domain] work. It is interesting to note also that no one who was familiar with the original O'Connell version ever heard Bob's recording or the Sons of the Pioneers perform the song anywhere.

It is also interesting that the people who screen songs at the copyright office did not check it against all song titles in their records A) When Bob sent it for copyright, and B) When O'Connell registered a copyright renewal in 1957, if they registered a renewal. If they didn't it is now in the Public Domain and Bob's version is safe having been renewed in 1965 for the original sheet music and in 1967 for the renewal on the Bob Nolan Songbook No. 2.

Note that there were NOT enough changes to the song (dialect spellings don't count) because it is obvious from a quick cursory examination that they are the same song.

Heavenly Aeroplane, Bob Nolan version (American Music, Inc.)
Heavenly Aeroplane, J.S. McConnell version (Thoro Harris)