In his most recent Theme Time Radio Hour show, the one dedicated to “Classic Rock,” Bob Dylan played the Stanley Brothers’ great version of Rock of Ages, and told the story of how the song came to be written.

Augustus Montague Toplady, of Blagdon, England, was traveling when a storm struck, and he ran into a cave for shelter. He was waiting for the storm to pass, happy that he had found this cave. He began to think about the idea of a rock of faith, and how it was a shelter from the storms of life. The words for him began to form, but he had no paper in his pocket to write it down. Looking down, he saw a playing card. He picked it up, and began to write, “Rock of ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.” It became one of the world’s most loved hymns, and was first published in 1775.

In a Q&A in Rolling Stone magazine in 2004, when asked what was last song he would like to hear before he died, Bob responded, “How ’bout Rock of Ages?”

Dylan also performed the song in concert himself on a number of occasions in 1999 and 2000. I think it’s hard to beat the version from Santa Cruz, California on March 16th, 2000.

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Addendum 4:55 pm: Richard writes:

That’s a great story, but how did the card get there, and what did he use as a writing instrument?

Well, I suppose a previous traveler could have dropped the playing card. The aura of sin that hangs around the playing of cards is I guess what makes that an attractive and persistent part of the story. The question of a writing instrument, though, is a very good one and a little harder to easily explain. He would hardly be carrying a writing quill and a bottle of ink with him on his journey but no paper. I do believe pencils of an early kind were in use then, however, so maybe that would be the only reasonable answer. You could see a man — expecially a cleric as he was — having a pencil buried in a pocket of his coat but still being without paper. It seems it would be a challenge write a song on an old playing card with a primitive pencil in a cave during a storm, but I guess he had some Assistance.

The story is recounted in a very similar way in various places online, but I don’t see a mention of the writing instrument anywhere.

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