All Saints Day

[loligo]

That was Sunday, and of course we sang "For All The Saints", which is surely one of my favorite hymns. Then I decided to try to narrow down my Top Ten favorites (not including Christmas carols), and I got so distracted flipping through the hymnal that I completely tuned out the rest of the service

Comments

[em_h]

Hymns! Yay

[loligo]

The only ones on your list there that I know are "O God Our Help In Ages Past" and "Let My People Go". Which surprises me not at all -- at least half the time when hymns are referenced in English books, movies, or TV shows, I don't know them.

I thought about several spirituals, but none of them had the pull of nostalgia behind them, so they didn't make the list. I might have included a few more from Southern Harmony and The Sacred Harp (two 19th century collections of Appalachian hymns) if I could have found links for them; I've only done them as choir anthems, so I can't be sure it's the hymns themselves that I like, and not something added by the arranger.

[em_h]

Well, a lot of my choices are kind of obscure. Though "The Day Though Gavest" would be familiar to anyone with even a glancingly Anglican background (and I bet you've heard it in English movies; it's that kind of hymn), you'd have to be a regular Anglican churchgoer and/or major hymn-fancier to know most of the others. Or have attended an English church school ... though I didn't mention several that have the nostalgia factor for me but are lacking on other levels (like "Forty Days and Forty Nights", which is one terribly penitential hymn to make little kids sing, but sing it I did).

[em_h]

I forgot two more favourites!

"Come Down, O Love Divine" (tune: Down Ampney), and "Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" (words by John Greenleaf Whittier, tune: Repton, Charles H.H. Parry). Although the second is a rather ironic hymn, drawn as it is from a poem which was in part arguing against music in church services.

[loligo]

I had to look these up, too. "Come Down, O Love Divine" is especially nice. (I know I've sung something else set to Down Ampney.)

I may have complained about this before: the current UCC hymnal not only made all the lyrics gender neutral (which I have no problem with), they also removed all the Thees and Thous and got rid of as many feudal titles (Lord and King) as they could. This is modernization that I cannot approve of.

[em_h]

I have to admit, I'm iffy about gender-inclusive language in a lot of cases; I'm really quite okay with regarding hymns as part of their historical period -- and while sometimes it does no harm, you just shouldn't go messing with lines like "Pleased as man with man to dwell" or "Born to raise the sons of earth", because you're *never* going to come up with an alternate that both scans, and is even half as good.

The church where my father is now singing has apparently gone through and gender-neutralized even the lines about Jesus as presumed historical person, which really does seem like going a bit far.