Steal Away To Jesus

Michelle Williams sings this traditional spiritual with Shirley Caesar answering nearly every line, the two voices trading the title phrase back and forth: "steal away, steal away, steal away to Jesus... I haven't got long to stay here."

"My Lord, my Lord, he calls me, he calls me by the thunder, the trumpet sounds way down in my sanctified soul" borrows directly from the language of Paul's letter to the Corinthians, where a trumpet call marks the moment believers are gathered up and changed.

The spiritual's repeated "I haven't got long to stay here" carries a double history worth naming — written and sung originally by enslaved people who used it both as an expression of longing for heaven and as a coded signal for secret gatherings. Caesar's ad-libs, "in the midnight hour... when you need some power... when your heart is heavy," keep that original urgency present rather than smoothing it into a generic comfort song.