You take an extremely deep breath and sing, "I've got that wonderful love of my blessed Redeemer way down in the depths of my heart."

Joy is the flag flown high
From the castle of my heart
From the castle of my heart
From the castle of my heart
Joy is the flag flown high
From the castle of my heart
When the King is in residence there!

After reading and remembering the "Countdown" song, I am rememebered that at the time the Sunday School I attended added a "Tick Tick Tick Tick Boom!" at the end.

What I remember though was Will Smith's "Boom! Shake the Room!" single had come out around the same time and it too had "Tick Tick Tick Tick Boom!" as a line...I kept imagining Jesus' return having a lot to do with Will Smith!

Spirit be our Spirit
In this time of searching for new life (Spirit be our Spirit)
Spirit be our Spirit
In this time of searching for new life
(Spirit be our Spirit)
Spirit, let us now beeeeee
And forever transformed for all humaniteeeee

We want everybody to happy
We want everybody to be glad
We want everbody to be happy in the Lord
(Shouted)AND WE DON'T WANT ANYBODY SAD

You probably won't believe this song even exists, but it truly does and I think it is worthy of an award.

I learnt it at a 'Children's Christian Crusade' in 1978 in Sheffield when I was 11.

I suspect that if I try this I'll end up being thought ignorant of elementary Latin grammar by my classically trained companions, but we'll see what happens.

quote:

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Originally posted by Late Quartet:
Don't have a face like a coffee pot
A coffee-pot is long and thin
Just have a face like a tea-pot
Other souls to Jesus win.

We want everybody to happy
We want everybody to be glad
We want everbody to be happy in the Lord
(Shouted)AND WE DON'T WANT ANYBODY SAD

You probably won't believe this song even exists, but it truly does and I think it is worthy of an award.

I learnt it at a 'Children's Christian Crusade' in 1978 in Sheffield when I was 11.

LQ

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I can give you the phone numbers of some good counsellors if need help.

quote:

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Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
one of the hymns mentioned gravy several times,

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how about

Up from the gravy 'e arose,
with a mightly triumph o'er his foes
He arose the victory from the dark domain
and lives for ever with the saints to reign.
He arose,
He arose,
Hallaluja Chirst arose

You got it, and I was most horrified by verse one: "Low in the gravy lay..."

Up for the gravy 'e arose,
with a mighty turnip on his fork
He arose from the table to get his bread...

but decided against it. I don't want to re-traumatise poor Greta

I still insist on having that on Christmas morning.

Where do we learn that God's name is Harold?

Which song is really about Joyce and which one about Rosanna?

Are you thinking about that wondrful hymn that advises us to "read (James?) Joyce, ye pure in heart"?

quote:

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Originally posted by CorgiGreta:
Are you thinking about that wondrful hymn that advises us to "read (James?) Joyce, ye pure in heart"?

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Oooh! An excellent attempt. But I was thinking about "Wee Joyce, wee Joyce, Emmanuel shall come to thee O Israel."

And of course it is in the Lord's prayer that we learn of God's personal name.

surely the lord's name is andy???

'andy walks with us,
andy talks with us,
andy knows us all by name....'

quote:

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Originally posted by Spike:
Ahem, sorry about this, but that particular chorus goes

Oh it's great great, brill brill, wicked wicked, skill skill/To have a friend like Jesus

We do it at a weekend known as New Beginnings that we take our youth group to and nobody but nobody seems to like it. In fact, most of the kids seem to find it really embarassing. That's why I was surprised to ear them singing it on the bus on the way home to London, until I realised that the'd made up some rude words for it.

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I see you've mastered using the quote facility, but seem to have not added anything else. If you are struggling with the code/ software you can practice to your heart's content in the Styx.

Thanks everyone for many laughs, and especially for reminding me of all those old camp/bus songs, several of which have once again hopelessly wormed into my brain. Great fun, but does anyone actually sing them in *worship*? Eeuw.

In my church, the ones we do have to sing once in a while tend to be not kid stuff or cheesy modern praise music (who the heck is Graham what's-his-name anyway?) but cheesy old-fashioned gospel, which hasn't gotten as much press here so far.

So just for kicks, I'll toss in a(n IMHO) dud gospel hymn, which fortunately my own congregation wouldn't have been caught dead singing, from my denomination's diversely-inclusive (and I'm all for that) 1989 hymnal:
"Nothing Between My Soul and My Savior"
by Charles Albert Findley, ca. 1906

I'll spare you the full text, and the tune is equally dire. It's just that IIRC the hymnal first came out not so long after that (in)famous TV commercial with a sultry Brooke Shields whispering about "Nothing between me and my Calvins"....

So what is it with these innuendos? Is double-entendre a subconsciously cherished feature of evangelical music in particular? What exactly is it about the savior-as-lover image in soppy hymns like 'In the Garden' that we so dislike (or like)? And how is that different from something more, um, tasteful, like, say, Herbert's 'Love Bade Me Welcome'?

Hope none of this is inappropriate for this forum; am still getting acquainted with Hell.

quote:

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Originally posted by JollyRojr:
You could get a barn dance crowd stompin and clappin along though!

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The tune was horrid enough - rather like the little warm up someone may do right after tuning a guitar. It was an offertory hymn, and the words (had anyone stopped to really listen to them), were so theologically off that they verged on (innocent) blasphemy:

And as the bread and wine are "prepared," one would hear:

All that I am, all that I do,
All that I'll ever have,
I offer now to you.

All that I dream, all that I pray,
All that I'll ever make,
I give to you today.

Take and sanctify these gifts,
For your honour, Lord,
Knowing that I love and serve you
Is enough reward.

All that I dream, all that I pray,
All that I'll ever make,
I give to you today.

...and I was a young musician who loved the liturgy then... no wonder I'm finding living out the ascetic theology I studied to be so difficult as I now approach the half century mark... My generation really did have a lot to un-learn...

quote:

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Hil wrote:
..."Nothing Between My Soul and My Savior"
by Charles Albert Findley, ca. 1906

I'll spare you the full text, and the tune is equally dire. It's just that IIRC the hymnal first came out not so long after that (in)famous TV commercial with a sultry Brooke Shields whispering about "Nothing between me and my Calvins"....

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Hil,

Welcome to hell. Hope you enjoy your stay here.

I have to take issue with you calling Brooke Shields "sultry," though. That girl had eyebrows that looked like two caterpillars glued to her forehead.

The barn-dance line is truly groan-worthy. Fits right in with this thread.

(You sing "I want" 12 times; not "It is my duty and joy" to serve the purpose of God etc, but "I want")

Ya know, for a long time I have wondered about this kind of thing, but something occured to me recently:

Suppose I was married, and I suprised my wife by giving her a rose.

She might well ask "How lovely! Why did you do that?"

I could make too possible responses:

1)"Because I love you so much, I want to show you how much I care, you make me so happy, I'm thrilled to know you, you do so much for me, I wanted to show my affection to you, I want to do what makes you happy"

2)"Because I'm married to you, and therefore I have a duty to do these kind of things."

I'm gonna take a wild guess MOST women would not respond to one by saying "I WANT?! IS that all you can ever think about? what YOU want?!" Rather they would think it sweet and lovely.

I also think most women would give you a slap in the face if you used the "duty" line.

TOILETBRUSH

Jesus is a toiletbrush
Cleans us up and pulls the flush
He goes where others will not go
That is why we Love him so

Jesus is like Mr. Sheen
He loves us even when we're mean
Sees the dirt and dives on in
Leaves us feeling lemon clean

The album costs just £6.

The problem is trying to write something meaningful, which at the same time is equally relevant to all people in all places singing it.

I saw someone critise a chorus which went:

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus (x infinity)

Presumably they felt it was shallow lyrically and didn't convey anything, but if you look on the bright side, at least you can't fault it's theology!

Joking aside, I'm making a serious point. A songwriter is has a difficult job to do.

It's worth remembering that very few songwriters sit down and say "I'm going to write a congregational hymn now".

Most songwriters simply write personal songs which other people then take and use in a congregational context.

So for example, in "I could sing of your love forever", Martin Smith says "and I will daily lift my hands".

In a sense it's a private song between him and God, so while he may have meant that literally it won't apply literally for everyone else.

Broadly speaking, if you right a personal song, it's not going to relate to everyone else all the time.

So what happens if you write a less personal, more detached song simply about the qualities of God and his nature?

Well then, you run into the problem that you simply can't say anything which hasn't been said so many times before it's become trite or simply barren tautology:

eg:

God is Good
God loves us
He is worthy of our worship.

I'm pretty sure all Christians could agree on this and sing it with conviction, but would they actually be gaining anything from it, or just treading over old cliches?

Another aspect is "quoting scripture"
This is a complete minefield for songwriters.

Some people will hold that "Bible Songs" are the only valid form of worship. The problem is there are only a handful of passages of scripture which you can actually quote wholesale and make songs from.

You have to take a passage of scipture and edit it, add additional lyrics etc....

The immediate problem is that editing holy scripture is an awesomely responsible task. Personally, I shy away from it in my song writing.

Someone will invariably tell you that you have completely altered the context or are some other kind of heretic.

I think a lot of modern songwriters do a pretty good job most of the time. Give them a break!

The bottom line is that some people are just really uncomfortable with worshipping through music and will NEVER be happy with what you give them.

My theory is that the reason that type of person tends to say they "prefer the old hymns" is because the old hymns use archaic language which enables them to disengage from what they are singing.

For example,
*potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres
ineffably sublime*

Of course, most intellegent people could work out what those lyrics mean if they actually think about it, but I reckon in most church services the average person just warbles their way through the and it's inoffensive.

Martin Smiths
"What a friend I've found...more intimate than lovers"

tends to stick in the throat because it hits us where it hurts.....

Are we embarrassed to sing those lines? Is it just because we think they are "cheesy?" or are we inhibited because expressing worship with that level of emotional intensity is alien to us?

I firmly believe worship should be challenging.

Songs which say things like

"My hearts one desire/is to be holy"

YES! That lyric sticks in my throat too! But why? because I know it's NOT my one desire...and consequently the song serves both as worship and exposes my hypocrasy as a catalyst for me to lead a more Godly life.....which is of course TRUE worship.

Of course there is a lot of crap out there too....

I am a trained, degreed musician, yet, often enough, my objections to many hymns are more theological than artistic! I don't know if I can express this well, but I would say that, the more we make hymns (in their wording) totally "personal," the more off track they have the potential for becoming. Words of worship, in my mind, are not trite - it is an expression of eternal truth. We praise you, bless you - that has "worked" for centuries. But, when it becomes a sung, "you are my love," somehow that becomes focussed more on "me" than on God or the congregation.

quote:

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My theory is that the reason that type of person tends to say they "prefer the old hymns" is because the old hymns use archaic language which enables them to disengage from what they are singing.

For example,
*potentate of time,
Creator of the rolling spheres
ineffably sublime*

Of course, most intellegent people could work out what those lyrics mean if they actually think about it, but I reckon in most church services the average person just warbles their way through the and it's inoffensive.

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How can you tell what is going through people's minds when they are singing hymns? There are a number of people on board who prefer hymn to choruses, are you saying that we prefer them because we want to disengage?

I happen to love those lines from 'Crown him with many crowns,', I know that they are not the easiest in terms of vocabulary, but the sound of the words adds to their effect (I love the line 'Potentate of time' for those Ts, it sounds wonderful). Remember hymns are poetry and I've heard it argued that the sound of the words is almost as important as their meaning in poetry. Here the words and their sounds somehow convey the wonder of God - who after all is beyond our comprehension (which is approximately what ineffably sublime means). I grew up singing hymns like that and I don't remember looking the words up in a dictionary but at some point I understood them.

I've just noticed that at the end of that hymn in my hymnbook (AMNS) there's a note which explains that the mystic Rose is a mediaeval title for the Blessed Virgin and combined with a reference to Isaiah 11.1, maybe there's an argument for something similar for certain lexical items - though some at least might find it patronising though it would be preferable to changing the words (and in some cases the meaning).

Ok I know I'm wierd and have a large vocabulary (I remember being worried when I was doing A level English and our teacher made us bring in a new word each week to improve our vocabularies, on the whole I knew the words that the rest of the class brought in (except Sara's whose vocab was as wide as mine) and had done for years) and love words and spot relationships between them - for example, I might not have come across Potentate but I've come across the first element in words like impotent and omnipotent so have some idea of what they might mean - but why shouldn't I be enabled to worship in the idiom I speak. Otherwise aren't I being patronising? - saying though I understand this we won't use it because you might not.

quote:

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Crown Him the Son of God
Before the worlds began
And ye who tread where He has trod
Crown Him the Son of Man
Who every grief hath known
That wrings the human breast
And takes, and bears them for His own
That all in Him may rest

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There are various other differences also, plus other verses I`ve seen in neither "standard" version, but which seem to appear from time to time. My question is this: was the original "Crown Him with Many Crowns" immensely long, and has just been split up in various different ways, or have lots of people written new verses to it over the years?

Personally I hate 'what a friend' because those lyrics do seem rather sexual. Even if I did think of Jesus in that way, I wouldn't want to say so in front of 150 people!

The version I heard seemed to start off with the tune of "Old King Cole", but the most wonderful lines were only a few verses away:

"O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now,
O eat your cherries, Mary,
That grow upon the bough."

I had to listen to it twice to confirm what I heard! I am not sure what I am more shocked by: the fact I haven't heard this song before or the fact that Kings College Choir would befoul their Christmas CD with it!

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Originally posted by Gill H:
Plus the 'it would break my heart/to ever lose each other' is sooo teenage romance.

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The Cherry Tree Carol! Loved that in school for its weirdness. Basically Joseph and Mary walk through a cherry orchard. Pregnant Mary gets a craving for cherries and asks Joseph to get some. Joseph throws a wobbly and says 'let your baby's father get them for you'. So God immediately does, by making the cherry tree bow down into Mary's hand. To make things even more trippy, Mary then has her baby, sits him on her knee and asks him about the future. He replies (seriously advanced development here) foretelling his own death.

...
and this will be the sign