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What Are They Doing in Heaven?

"What Are They Doing in Heaven Today"
Phillips-WhatAreTheyDoing.jpg
Single by Washington Phillips
A-side "Jesus Is My Friend"
Format 10" 78rpm single
Recorded December 5, 1928; Dallas, TX
Genre Gospel blues
Length 3:15
Label Columbia 14404-D
Songwriter(s) Charles Albert Tindley
Producer(s) Frank B. Walker
Washington Phillips singles chronology
"Mother's Last Word to Her Son" / "String Module Error: Match not found"
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"Jesus Is My Friend" / "String Module Error: Match not found"
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"I Am Born to Preach the Gospel" / "String Module Error: Match not found"
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"Mother's Last Word to Her Son" / "Paul and Silas in Jail" "Jesus Is My Friend" / "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today" "I Am Born to Preach the Gospel" / "Train Your Child"

"What Are They Doing in Heaven?" is a Christian hymn written in 1901 by American Methodist minister Charles Albert Tindley. As of 2015, it has become popular enough to have been included in 16 hymnals.

The song has sometimes been recorded under the titles "What Are They Doing?" and "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?". The question mark is often omitted. The song may also be known by its first line, "I am thinking of friends whom I used to know".

The song consists of four verses and a refrain, each four lines long. In both the verses and the refrain, the first three lines rhyme, and the fourth is "What are they doing now?" or some small variant of that. The author reflects on friends who were burdened in life by care, or by disease, or by poverty; and wonders what they might now be doing in Heaven, without giving his answer.

The first known recording of the song is the 1928 one by Washington Phillips (1880–1954; vocals and zither), in gospel blues style. Phillips' recording was used in the soundtrack of the 2005 film Elizabethtown. The song has since been recorded many times in a wide variety of styles, including gospel and bluegrass; sometimes attributed to Phillips or to "anonymous" or to "traditional".


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