amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me along the river by the road near a mississippi town was a place where my family loved to go was the church house with a steeple and was always filled with people cause the neighbors came from miles and miles around as a boy and as a man in the front row i would stand and raise my voice to god up in the sky everybody joined the singing till the little church was ringing with songs like in the sweet by and by in the sweet by and by we shall meet on that beautiful shore though i ve long been lost in sin i can dream me back again to the little church that s nestled in my mind in the early part of may delta nights were hard to take so we opened up the windows and the doors the congregation sat and fanned some with bibles in their hands out into the night the words of god would pour precious memories how they linger how they ever flood my soul in the stillness of the midnight precious sacred scenes unfold in the sweet by and by we shall meet on that beautiful shore though i ve long been lost in sin i can dream me back again to the little church that s nestled in my mind