A young band director hummed and sang snatches of a verse as he drove to work one morning, rejoicing and “having church in the car” as he recalls. The song he hummed was an old Southern Gospel standard titled, “Is This Not the Land of Beulah?” He’d often heard it led in church in Newton, West Virginia, by his father, a minister of music.  

Arriving to work at Hannan High School a little early, he switched on the lights in the quiet band room. Alone with his thoughts, he sat down at a piano to play through the lyrics that were running through his mind. He wanted to get them written down before his students began to arrive. On a scrap of notebook paper he penned some words that would eventually become the inspiration for one of the most beloved, emotionally charged and memorable gospel songs of all time …

The hauntingly endearing words will probably be familiar to you when the first notes of the piano precede the well-known refrain, “I’m kind of homesick, for a country, to which I’ve never been before. No sad goodbyes will there be spoken for time won’t matter anymore. Beulah Land, I’m longing for you, and some day on thee I’ll stand. There my home shall be eternal, Beulah Land, Sweet Beulah Land.”

“I wasn’t really trying to write a song,” recalls Squire Parsons in a recent telephone interview with The Cullman Times. “But the phrases just kept on coming.”

Parsons had no idea when he wrote those words in 1973, that his first song would touch so many hearts, or pave the road to his success. “It came from the Lord, from the overflow of my heart,” he said softly.

For six long years the words lay tucked away in a folder with some other uncompleted compositions. From time to time he thought of them, played them over in his head or tinkered with the melody, but for the most part, they were put away and their composer went on to other things. Eventually, they were boxed up and moved with other belongings when the family relocated from West Virginia to North Carolina in 1975. That move was made when Parsons joined a gospel group called the Kingsmen Quartet.

The song would remain unfinished until 1979, when Squire Parsons was searching through his folder for songs for his first solo recording. “I found the unfinished song titled, “Beulah Land,” he recalled. “As I sang through the song I started feeling the same excitement and joy that I had experienced years earlier when I composed the first verse and chorus. It seemed that the second verse had been locked up in my heart all those years because in just a few minutes, the second verse just flowed out in its entirety.”

It was at that point that he titled it, “Sweet Beulah Land.” This song, six years in the making, would be the catalyst that would bring him fame in gospel circles worldwide and win him many accolades over the coming years.

It seems that once again our time and God’s time were not the same. God must have waited for the exact millisecond when He knew that the right people were in position, the key elements in perfect alignment to record, publish and catapult this particular song to the top of the charts so that others could rejoice in it, love it and learn to lean on the simple message.

“I’m looking now across the river where my faith will end in sight. There’s just a few more days to labor. Then I will take my heavenly flight.”

The second verse completed, he showed his song to others whose judgment he trusted. After that, it wasn’t long before it was recorded in 1979. The rest is history.

“Sweet Beulah Land” became the number one Southern Gospel single, receiving the Singing News Fan Awards for Song of the Year in 1981. It has been recorded by several other artists, including Carol Roberson, the Chuck Wagon Gang, The Inspirations Quartet, the Rex Nelson Singers, the Gaither Homecoming Choir, and Parsons, himself. It is probably one of the top two songs requested for funeral services in the Southeast because of its uplifting message.

Parsons was as surprised as anyone by the overwhelming response to his lyrics. “The greatest reward about ‘Sweet Beulah Land’ is how so many people still come up to tell me how it has affected them. That’s more important than anything you can hang on a wall,” he said humbly.

Around the time of the completion of the song, he was heavily burdened about leaving the Kingsmen, with whom he had been singing for four years. He’d been asked repeatedly to do solo performances and his heart was troubled with the decision.

It was then that he threw out a fleece before the Lord. “If I get three more requests for solo performances, I’ll take that as a sign that you want me to go out on my own,” he promised God.

Meanwhile, as he struggled with the decision, he continued to write. Other songs that people request time after time are Parsons’ “The Broken Rose”, and “He Came to Me”, both popular in the early 1980s. “The Lord gave certain groups of people the gift to minister and comfort other people,” he said when asked about his gift. “The Lord opened up this ministry for me and here I am, still reaping from it after nearly 40 years.”

Parsons has the ability to turn life’s turmoils into lessons through his music. In one such instance, he told the true story of a boyhood friend who had strayed from the path after returning from Vietnam. “He had made up his mind to become a Hell’s Angel,” explained Parsons.  

This friend was fortunate to have had a praying mother. He told Parsons of his epiphany. “Mama’s prayers caught up with me,” said the friend. “I made an altar of my Harley on an old country road.”

Squire wrote the song the next week, but it was much later before his friend would hear it. The moving ballad relates how the man reached his mother by phone late one night. “Hello, Mama,” he said. “I just called to tell you, all those tears you shed for me, they were not in vain.”

In another verse, Parsons perhaps sums up the essential core of the hearts of all mothers who are burdened for their children’s salvation and their safety. “All those dreary days, they’re over now, those sleepless nights are past. All those prayers that you have prayed so long, they’re answered now at last. For I’m not the boy I used to be, Mama, you can sleep tonight, for I found Jesus, now everything’s all right.”

Those words, sung in Squire Parsons’ senatorial, baritone voice, recognized throughout the world of Southern Gospel Music as one of the most impressive, has had an impact on many a lost and weary soul, wandering in despair. “The Lord has really used that song, especially in the prison ministry,” said Parsons.

Parsons learned to sing at his father’s knee. The senior Parsons was a choir director and deacon at Newton Baptist Church in West Virginia. He used shape notes to teach his son how to sing.

Parsons attended the West Virginia Institute of Technology, in Montgomery, W.V., where he earned a bachelor of science in music, although his early studies were in engineering. It was after graduation in 1970, that he accepted a teaching position at Hannan High School in West Virginia, also serving as music director in various churches. It was during this time that he wrote “Sweet Beulah Land”.

In addition to serving as music director, being a soloist, piano player and a songwriter, Parsons also became an ordained minister in 1979. He continued to write such hits as “The Master of the Sea”, “Walk On”, “I Call It Home”, “I Sing Because”, and “I’m Not Giving Up” in addition to dozens of others.

Nominated for a Dove Award in 1999, Parsons went on to win Singing News Fan Award for favorite male singer in 1988. He also won a Singing News Fan Award for Favorite Songwriter in 1986, and each year from 1992-1995, and Favorite Baritone in ’86 and ’87.

It’s easy to see why fans love this “gentle giant” of a man. He is unassuming, deeply spiritual, a family man who travels to minister to the families of strangers, and a gifted vocalist and musician who shares his love for the Lord, and his heart with the world.

Cullman’s East Side Baptist Church played a key role in Parsons’ early decision to go solo. When he threw out the fleece to the Lord, promising that if he received three more requests for solo performances, he would make the break with the Kingsmen. Sure enough, when the three requests came – one of them was East Side Baptist.

Pastor of Outreach Ministries at East Side, Sam Hollis, recalls that momentous event in Parsons’ career. Friends since the ’70s, the two ministers have shared various pulpits over the intervening years. 

Today, Parsons still travels to bring his ministry in song to thousands of people annually. His son, Sam, accompanies him on stage.

He is also working on a project long dear to his heart: Setting the Psalms to music, as well as a devotional. “I think setting the Psalms to music will be one of Squire’s greatest contributions to the world of music,” Hollis said.

On Aug. 23, at 7 p.m. Squire Parsons will be in concert at the McGukin Civic Center in Cullman, Alabama. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend this night of special message in song.

The presentation is an honor to the man and his music, and will include a Southern Gospel Choir assembled from across the state to accompany him on selected songs. Squire Parsons’ “Alabama Homecoming” is sponsored by East Side Baptist Church of Cullman.

There is no admission. A love offering will be taken during the performance.

For more information, call 256-734-6144

When: On Aug. 23, at 7 p.m.

Where: McGukin Civic Center in Cullman, Alabama.

Sponsors: East Side Baptist Church of Cullman.

Cost: Free. A love offering will be taken during the performance.

For more information, call 256-734-6144