# The word "bar": theological meaning

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 22, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019 "2017-12-22T01:36:28Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/1 "2017-12-22T01:36:28Z")

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I encounter this meaning once in a blue moon. There was an episode of _The Beverly Hillbillies_ in which Granny sang some kind of hymn with the line “back in the corner where you are,” and used the word “bar” at the end of the next line. And in his song “We Will All Go Together When We Go,” Tom Lehrer includes the lines, “We will all char together when we char; /And let there be no moaning of the bar…”  
What does “bar” mean as it is used in these lyrics?

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/2 "2017-12-22T01:45:20Z")

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The Lehrer song sounds like a take-off of Tennyson’s poem, “Crossing the Bar,” a poem that uses a nautical metaphor for life and death.

The “bar” in the poem is a sandbar that may be the point of no return; when you have crossed the bar, you’re on your final voyage to death.

“Let there be no moaning at the bar /  
When I put out to sea”

is a “don’t mourn for me; this is the natural end” kind of sentiment.

> **[Crossing the Bar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Bar)**
>
> "Crossing the Bar" is an 1889 poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is considered that Tennyson wrote it in elegy; the narrator uses an extended metaphor to compare death with crossing the "sandbar" between the river of life, with its outgoing "flood", and the ocean that lies beyond death, the "boundless deep", to which we return.
> Tennyson is believed to have written the poem (after suffering a serious illness) while on the sea, crossing the Solent from Aldworth to Farringford on the Isle of Wight...

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/3 "2017-12-22T01:56:56Z")

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Here’s the full poem (mods, I assume it’s public domain, since Tennyson died in 1892).

Crossing the Bar

Sunset and evening star,  
And one clear call for me!  
And may there be no moaning of the bar,  
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,  
Too full for sound and foam,  
When that which drew from out the boundless deep  
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,  
And after that the dark!  
And may there be no sadness of farewell,  
When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place  
The flood may bear me far,  
I hope to see my Pilot face to face  
When I have crost the bar.

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/4 "2017-12-22T02:01:56Z")

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Thanks… looks like Lehrer did his research.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/5 "2017-12-22T02:02:14Z")

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> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> There was an episode of _The Beverly Hillbillies_ in which Granny sang some kind of hymn with the line “back in the corner where you are,” and used the word “bar” at the end of the next line.

It’s [Brighten the Corner Where You Are.](https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/8652)

> [@](#):
>
> Brighten the corner where you are!  
> Brighten the corner where you are!  
> Someone far from harbor you may guide across the bar;  
> Brighten the corner where you are!

It’s the same metaphor: a ship passing over the bar at the mouth of a harbor.

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**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/6 "2017-12-22T02:07:17Z")

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> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> Thanks… looks like Lehrer did his research.

It was a pretty well known in the past. I probably had to read it in high school. When Lehrer was writing he could assume that many of his listeners would be familiar with the phrase.

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/7 "2017-12-22T02:11:26Z")

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Thanks… looks like Lehrer did his research.

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/8 "2017-12-22T02:15:21Z")

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Apparently, the script writers of _The Beverly Hillbillies_ did too. 🙂

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/9 "2017-12-22T02:21:14Z")

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Personally, I would have thought Granny was singing about a bear. 😃

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/10 "2017-12-22T02:21:26Z")

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To Northern Piper: That line ‘no sadness of farewell’ reminds me of Steve Goodman’s song “A Dying Cub Fan’s Last Request,” in which the dying fan tells the people around him not to mourn; HE feels sorry for THEM. Still, I cried at the end of the song. ☹

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/11 "2017-12-22T02:22:49Z")

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> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> Personally, I would have thought Granny was singing about a bear. 😃

Bear? That wouldn’t rhyme.

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/12 "2017-12-22T02:29:30Z")

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Granny was from the Ozarks, just like [Daniel Boone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Boone#Marriage_and_family), so I would have thought used the same pronunciation:

> [@](#):
>
> Such frontiersmen often carved messages on trees or wrote their names on cave walls, and Boone’s name or initials have been found in many places. One on a tree in present Washington County, Tennessee reads “D. Boon Cilled a. Bar on tree in the year 1760”. A similar carving, preserved in the museum of the Filson Historical Society in Louisville, Kentucky, reads “D. Boon Kilt a Bar, 1803.” The inscriptions may also be among numerous forgeries of the famous trapper, part of a long tradition of phony Boone relics.[18]

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**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/13 "2017-12-22T02:30:19Z")

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> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> Personally, I would have thought Granny was singing about a bear. 😃

“Gladly, the Cross-eyed Bear”?

I just realized you were thinking of Granny’s accent - and then I saw the post that you ninja’d in there, saying the same thing.

See 0:15 or so [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcRQedoEyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txcRQedoEyY) for Fess Parker’s pronunciation.

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**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/14 "2017-12-22T02:55:10Z")

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> [@dougie\_monty](#):
>
> Thanks… looks like Lehrer did his research.

Actually, the phrase was quite well known when he used it. It had to be: otherwise the audience would not get the reference.

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/15 "2017-12-22T03:17:10Z")

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I noted all kinds of classical references in his lyrics. He probably took quite a few intellectual courses in college. And he even knew Russian. (So did a lovely girl I went to school with; a beauty who I figure measures 120" around the brain. 🙂 )

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**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/16 "2017-12-22T13:16:57Z")

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> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> Here’s the full poem (mods, I assume it’s public domain, since Tennyson died in 1892).

Damn. I didn’t even realize he’d been ill.☹

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/17 "2017-12-22T14:08:38Z")

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Yeah, it caught all of us by surprise.

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**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/18 "2017-12-22T14:20:09Z")

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“Ask not for whom the bell tolls,  
It tolls for thee.”

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**Author:** ![dougie\_monty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@dougie\_monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dougie_monty)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/19 "2017-12-22T16:09:12Z")

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> [@Northern\_Piper](#):
>
> “Ask not for whom the bell tolls,  
> It tolls for thee.”

…and Hemingway obviously did plenty of research himself.

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**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-word-bar-theological-meaning/805019/20 "2017-12-22T16:33:41Z")

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> [@kayaker](#):
>
> Damn. I didn’t even realize he’d been ill.☹

And I bet nobody had him in the 1892 Death Pool. Talk about missed opportunities.