The lyric from “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is “Coming for to carry me home.”
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” is an African-American spiritual whose refrain repeats that phrase after the image of a heavenly chariot. The song uses the biblical story of the prophet Elijah being taken into Heaven by a chariot, turning the image into a promise of release from earthly suffering.
The spiritual probably emerged in the late 1860s among Choctaw Freedmen Wallace Willis and his daughter Minerva Willis. Performances by the Hampton Singers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers brought it to wider attention in the late 19th century. The earliest known recording dates to 1894.
Because spirituals were transmitted orally, their verses and wording are not completely standardized. Some versions add an “Oh” before the refrain or use different verse sequences. The core line remains “Coming for to carry me home,” while “home” refers symbolically to Heaven. The song later became especially famous through recordings and its adoption as a rugby supporters’ song in England.