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Lujack
Guest
What makes it a performance? Its a song. Sure, it isn’t Gregorian chant, but there isn’t anything ‘me oriented’ about it, and I don’t see any Protestant flair in it.
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mlchance
Guest
It’s got the pronouns wrong. Change the first person singular to third person singular, with appropriate changes to verbs and adverbs. “He is here, standing right beside me. / He is here; I am not afraid.” Lose the “I am here, here I am…” line entirely. Who wrote this? Dr. Seuss?
– Mark L. Chance.
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puzzleannie
Guest
in this parish we are not allowed to use any hymn which will have the cantor, choir or congregation singing words that purport to be from the mouth of the Deity, including those whose lyrics are derived from the psalms or other scripture. any song with “Yahweh” has been banned for a long time. Here I Am is high on the target list.
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The_Smiter
Guest
Kudos.
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forever_always
Guest
Ahhh i love that song. =]
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kage_ar
Guest
Would you please hug your music directory, liturgy committee and Pastor for me?
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puzzleannie
Guest
we have a pastor, we don’t have all those other job titles. and our music is not the greatest, either.
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JKirkLVNV
Guest
You’ve misunderstood me. My remarks about measured and free of heresy were in support of more traditional hymns. Reread my post.
And I should be careful batting around the term “Protestant.” I grew up Protestant, a Southern Baptist, and most of the hymnody of my youth was a lot closer to the Catholic faith than what is currently being sung in Catholic churches. Even modern praise music, which I dislike, is generally orthodox when compared with the horizontal emphasis of the music coming out of Oregon Catholic Press et al. Our contemporary Catholic music is something we inflicted on ourselves. It isn’t the fault of our Protestant brothers and sisters.
Also, I don’t find “Here I Am” to be particularly “me” oriented. It’s certainly oriented towards humans, but the theme is God wooing us with His Love. As has been stated, that’s a theme as old as the Bible.
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JKirkLVNV
Guest
Then it must be difficult to chant passages from either the Old or the New Testament, much of which has the Holy One speaking in the First Person. I’ve heard this argument and I don’t think much of it. I think that folks who cannot understand that these are the words of the Lord directed to them and not the words of the choir, or cantor or congregation, or who become alarmed that humans are assuming the roles of the Deity, are in about the same intellectual boat as those who insist on “inclusive” language on the grounds that phrases like “for us men and for our salvation” obviously and unfairly excludes women. Neither extreme works.
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kage_ar
Guest
With those guidelines, it is better than many
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agapewolf
Guest
T. Booth has discussed this song before at various times. NO, it is absolutely not a pagan song.
He even admitted that one must be very careful about putting words in the Lord’s mouth. His references come from scripture.
He even admitted that one must be very careful about putting words in the Lord’s mouth. His references come from scripture.
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Sarabande
Guest
The rendering of the song by the singers in that website is too saccharine and anemic for my tastes, but I can see how it can be a nice song when sung by the right singers, although not as a sacred song or for liturgy. As a song for outside of mass, it’s nice for those who like that kind of music.
The problem I have with the lyrics is that it never mentions God, nor refers to anything “religious”. It can easily be misconstrued as a secular love song. This was the first time I heard the song, but if I heard it on a radio station, I would just think it was a new secular song - unless it was sung in the way those performers did it on the website. And unfortunately that isn’t a complement to the rendering of Christian music.
Also, because of the lyrics and how it is marketed as a Christian song, it reminds me of that South Park episode (no I don’t watch the show, but came across the show while staying in a hotel last year) and the “kids” were writing love songs and incorporating “Jesus” or “God” in the lyrics and thus getting the attention of the young, Christian audience. And they would use words like “lover” etc. So, I can’t get that out of my mind.
I’m sure the songwriter had no intention of getting that kind of response to his song and wrote it with the best of intentions. It’s a nice song for what it is. I just don’t think it is appropriate in a mass setting.
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benedictgal
Guest
I saw the same episode. I laughed so hard that I cried. Unfortunately, there is some truth to that episode.
The big problem is that there is no reference to God, as you have rightly observed. In fact, that is the big problem with a lot of the songs from this genre. Someone called it the “voice of God” syndrome, where it’s in the first person, but, unless one is explicitly told or it is explicitly noted, it could either be about God speaking or about me.
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agapewolf
Guest
“Do not fear, when the tempter calls you, do not fear I have conquered evil…”
You would think that is a secular love song? It’s pretty clear to me.
Every phrase mentions God because it is God speaking.
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JPUSC
Guest
OCP says we can use secular songs for worship and apply them to God, LOL. I’ve heard this played during Adoration.
Bill Withers’s Lean on Me is published in OCP’s Spirit & Song
spiritandsong.com/musicondemand/songs/30961
OCP’s rendition is rather awful - sounds like something from a really bad Sesame Street or Barney special. The speaking parts after the first refrain and at the end crack me up. Then all of a sudden, the dude gets a Caribbean accent.
Bill Withers’s Lean on Me is published in OCP’s Spirit & Song
spiritandsong.com/musicondemand/songs/30961
OCP’s rendition is rather awful - sounds like something from a really bad Sesame Street or Barney special. The speaking parts after the first refrain and at the end crack me up. Then all of a sudden, the dude gets a Caribbean accent.
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benedictgal
Guest
Of course, OCP is not the authority as to what can and cannot be used for the Mass. They are merely a publishing house with a very clever marketing team, but, that is it. Unfortunately, it appears to me that they have not read Musicam Sacram, the Chirograph on Sacred Music and Liturgiam Authenticam. Even the USCCB in its power point (which I am trying to figure out how to post) has tried to draw the line.
I am reminded of the excellent article that J.A. Tucker wrote, the Hidden Hand Behind Bad Catholic Music. In it, he observes that:
That is about as accurate a description of OCP as I have encountered. Unfortunately, it is also something that I have experienced. That is not to say that GIA is any better, as they have taken a huge tumble, especially with their massacre of the Worship III hymnal.
Nonetheless, while the song in the OP may have been inspired by the Songs of Solomon, that it as far as it goes. Why not just set the authentic text to music, but, with the clairifcation that it is God who speaks. For example, the Lord says… or He says… That is a much more accurate rendition.
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JPUSC
Guest
Artistically, GIA may be a little better since I’ve noticed that many of the better songs in OCP’s Music Issue are actually from GIA. WLP seems to have copied OCP’s teen-oriented marketing strategy and has entered the Catholic version of the Christian rock market.
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Sarabande
Guest
Actually, yes I would. I’ve looked at operas with librettos very similar to this. Sometimes it had nothing to do with God and just with evil people and virtuous people conquering the evil that was prevailing in the story. It’s the hero telling the heroine not to fear. Or the young boy in love with the heroine telling himself that he would conquer the evil trying to defile his amour. Other times, it had to do with the tempter, but just because it mentioned the Devil in those operas, didn’t make the aria a sacred song.
Perhaps it can be construed in that sense, but that’s the problem… it is ambiguous to the point that many people can have a different idea of whether or not the song is about God or about one’s lover. Now, if “God” or “Jesus” or the “Lord” was mentioned, or if was a direct quote from the Bible there would be no question that it was a religious song. And whether or not a person liked the song, at least you would know that it was definitely meant to be a religious one. But this one can be interchangeable. You can stick it in a Broadway show and people would construe it to be a love song.
For instance from “All I Ask of You” (Phantom of the Opera)
“No more talk of darkness. Forget these wide-eyed fears. I’m here. Nothing can harm you, my words will warm and calm you…” etc “All I want is freedom… A world of no more night and you always beside me, to hold me and to guide me.” If no one knew where that song came from and someone tried to sell it as a religious song, it would be just as ambiguous as “Here I Am”. People who would have bought that song would make themselves believe that the “darkness” sung about was Satan and evil. They would make themselves believe that the voice telling the other one to be safe and that he was going to shelter, love and protect her, asking her to share her life with him, to love him, could be construed as God asking the person to surrender herself fully and completely to him.
(As a side note, I have done Protestant weddings where this song was chosen for the wedding and even though people knew it came from the Broadway show, they worked it into their wedding service for it to mean something spiritual and loving at the same time, so that it could be used. Some Protestant churches allow anything, but others have some guidelines, and just like some Catholic churches - I’ve worked at Catholic churches where they allowed songs from the Sound of Music like “Climb E’vry Mountain” because it was sung by a nun - they will maneuver and justify things around so that it can be worked into the service.)
Again, I don’t think it’s a bad song. A nice melody and something I can see be done well if the right people were singing it and something I could hear on Broadway or just as a nice, calming song (religious or secular) on the radio.
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BSHoop96
Guest
I think the problem is the modern “meaning of love and romance” which actually more often than not means sex. You could have romantic love in medievel times and the chivalrous knight, for example, would love, adore, write sonnets to, etc., his “ideal woman” without ever going beyond that.
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Sarabande
Guest
This is true. “Making love” for instance, up till the early 20th century, did not mean having sex. It just meant being innocently amorous with your sweetheart. I know a man in his early 60s who was a sensitive, innocent, old-fashioned kind of guy when he was a young man. He read a lot of old poetry and novels and innocently said to a girl he was dating, “I love making love to you.” Well, that ended the courtship right then and there. He got smacked in the face and didn’t know why until he asked his friends and was brought to the realization that the “modern” (this was back in the early 60s) term of “making love” meant having sex. He never used that again when dating.
But besides the fact that the writer probably should have thought about the modern connotation of the word, “lover”, it’s more of the issue that the song is ambiguous with no mention on God, thus leaving it open to lots of interpretation of whether or not it is a secular song or a religious one.
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