Hymns & Lyrics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ace86
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Wolseley said:
Hmmm…sort of like Father Martin Luther and Sister Katherina von Bora, isn’t it? 😉
Click to expand...
Martin Luther wrote A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Now I would never want to hear that being sung at Mass (and I’ve heard it before), but it actually is a good hymn musically in my opinion.
 
patches said:
Thanks for the ideas! But you’ve got me scratchin’ my head about “Where Love is Found,” though. Where do you find it “squishy?” Most of the text either directly quotes or is a very close paraphrase of St. Paul.
Click to expand...
If the hymn is a Pauline discourse on the qualities of love, that is fine; if it includes a serious call to live a life of charity, even better. But the first line of “Where Love is Found” reminded me of a slogan I saw again this week: “Love is God”. This inversion of the Biblical “God is Love” can be used to water down Christianity in various ways, and that was my concern. We have a videotape in our parish library where a priest of the Catholic Church claims that Jesus never says to love God the Father, only to love each other. That claim is easily shown to be false, but in the wrong hands your fine hymn could be misused to reinforce that false teaching. From the two sample hymns you provided, it seems as though parishioners at your church will be better taught and will learn to follow both of the great commandments, not just the second.
 
If anyone ever gets bored with Amazing Grace, just remember that it can also be sung to the theme from Gilligan’s Island.

I don’t use “Let Us Break Bread Together” because we aren’t breaking bread WITH the Lord. The “bread” IS the Lord, and so is the “wine.”

The music to “Morning Has Broken” (which I actually use now and then) is the old Irish tune, Bunessan, which I believe was originally composed to accompany St. Patrick’s Breastplate.

Another tune that I like is the Dutch song, Komt nu met zang, but not the horrible English lyrics “What Is This Place?”

A favorite tune of mine is the more contemporary "Vineyard Haven, " which is rarely found in Catholic hymnals, but is found in many Protestant hymnals under “Come We That Love the Lord.”

I love “Faith of Our Fathers,” though with the American tune, and many people don’t realize that this is actually a Catholic hymn, written by a man who had recently converted.

The tune for “Lord of the Dance” is “Simple Gifts,” originally a nice old Shaker song which few could object to:
Code: 
    'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
        'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
    And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
        'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
    When true simplicity is gain'd,
        To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
    To turn, turn will be our delight,
        Till by turning, turning we come round right.
Beats the heck out of “it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back!”
 
Beats the heck out of “it’s hard to dance with the devil on your back!”
Click to expand...
Or even better ‘They whipped and they stripped and they hung me high’ - sung to that nauseatingly cheery tune.

But I’m with you, I like Simple Gifts.
 
I cant sing. So I just mouth it. I dont really like any of the hymns.
When the kids sing I like that.
Otherwise, I just dont like it.
I do like hearing Gregorian Chant and EO stuff in my car.
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
If anyone ever gets bored with Amazing Grace, just remember that it can also be sung to the theme from Gilligan’s Island.

snip
Click to expand...
And to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun.”

I have arranged AG for unaccompanied male quartet like this:

Verse 1: Lead solo, HOTRS melody.
Verse 2: Lead solo, harmony “oohs”, HOTRS melody.
Verse 3: Modulate to relative major key, full quartet, AG melody
Verse 4: Modulate up a 4th, full quartet, AG melody, up a half-step after the 2nd line.

No way I would approve of doing that at Mass, but in a concert setting with four good male singers it was awesome.

DaveBj
 
MikeDunphy said:
If the hymn is a Pauline discourse on the qualities of love, that is fine; if it includes a serious call to live a life of charity, even better.

That’s pretty much what the verses assert.
But the first line of “Where Love is Found” reminded me of a slogan I saw again this week: “Love is God”. This inversion of the Biblical “God is Love” can be used to water down Christianity in various ways, and that was my concern.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Wolseley said:
Probably the same thing as “Give us the courage to enter the song”, whatever that means. Schutte, Hagen, Haas, et al had a remarkable talent for writing lyrics that are not only theologically murky and unbelievably banal, but at times metaphorically nonsensical as well.
Click to expand...
Maybe they mean give us the courage to sing this nonsense. 😛

That said, I simply adore A Mighty Fortress is our God and Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.
 
Annunciata said:
And I had “Eagles Wings” played at my husbands funeral…He loved that song…
Click to expand...
This was played at my father-in-law’s funeral as the recessional, being one of my mother-in-law’s favorites. I was crying too hard on the way out to hear it, as was she.

The offertory hymn was “Amazing Grace,” selected because it had been one of my father-in-law’s favorites. Mom sang along with the choir, made it through two verses and could not continue. Somehow I found the strength to keep singing . . . for her.

Too bad we couldn’t sing Duke Ellington’s “Mood Indigo” in church. That was also one of Dad’s favorites.
 
Cavaille-Coll said:
If anyone ever gets bored with Amazing Grace, just remember that it can also be sung to the theme from Gilligan’s Island.
Click to expand...
Oh my, not sure I wanted to know that! Gonna be hard to sing it with a straight face! Luckily, our priest doesn’t think it’s appropriate for Mass, so he only lets our music director sing it a few times a year.
 
Elzee said:
Oh my, not sure I wanted to know that! Gonna be hard to sing it with a straight face! Luckily, our priest doesn’t think it’s appropriate for Mass, so he only lets our music director sing it a few times a year.
Click to expand...
Well just to add to the tunes in your head next time you hear it…

I was once in a Bible Church where the Youth Goup Got up and sang Amazing Grace to the tune of the Coca-Cola song (I’d like to teach the world to sing…). To this day when someone Says, “Amazing Grace” it pops in my head to that tune.
 
oops–in my post #167 I meant to say in the first full paragraph: so many of the lyrics are compatible with Catholic theology, not Protestant…sorry for any confusion!
 
Syele said:
Well just to add to the tunes in your head next time you hear it…

I was once in a Bible Church where the Youth Goup Got up and sang Amazing Grace to the tune of the Coca-Cola song (I’d like to teach the world to sing…). To this day when someone Says, “Amazing Grace” it pops in my head to that tune.
Click to expand...
ROFL–that brings back memories. Back in the '80s at the pentecostal church I was attending I did a medley of gospel lyrics to the tunes of various commercials of the day. I remember I used that tune for “Amazing Grace,” and I did something to the “I don’t wanna grow up, I’m a Toys R Us kid” tune, but I don’t remember what that was.

Dang, I haven’t thought about that in a long time. Can’t you just picture the Toys R Us jingle in Mass? 😛

DaveBj
 
While we are on songs we don’t like…Pescador de Hombres… I am so sick of it because our music director thinks it is ok for the hispanics to sing in spanish while the rest sing in english… so she has this one at every, and I mean every mass!!! But then I have issues with the music director sounding like the social director of mass: "Everyone please turn to your neighbor and greet them with a kiss or wave…bleck!!! I just get the willies when I hear her voice as mass starts…
 
If I ever went to a church where a strange man turned and kissed me before Mass, I’d break his jaw.
 
A local girls school around my hometown plays the song “What if God was one of Us” by Joan Osborne at mass. The lyrics go as such.

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with him in all his glory
what would you ask if you had just one question?

and Yeah, Yeah, God is great
Yeah, Yeah, God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home

If God had a face
What would it look like?
And would you want to see
If seeing meant that you would have to believe
In things like heaven and Jesus and the saints
and all the Prophets

and Yeah, Yeah, God is great
Yeah, Yeah, God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Back up to Heaven all alone
Nobody callin’ on the phone
'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

and Yeah, Yeah, God is great
Yeah, Yeah, God is good
Yeah Yeah yeah yeah yeah

What if God was one of us?
Just a slob like one of us
Just a stranger on the bus
Trying to make his way home
Just trying to make his way home
Like a holy Rolling Stone
Back up to Heaven all alone
Just trying to make his way home
Nobody callin’ on the phone
'cept for the Pope maybe in Rome

Is there anything unsound? Is the theology good? If not, am I justified in being a little upset over this choice of music? What should i tell the music director/nuns at the school?

Thanks.
 
Pax tecum!

That song, while being one that I like (when it’s played on the radio), was not written for the liturgy. It is not approved for use in the liturgy. As much as they like to think so, music directors and parish liturgists have no authority to decide to introduce secular music into the Mass. In fact, bishops don’t even have that authority. There is a document that states that, though I forget which one…perhaps someone else can find it before I can.

I just don’t know why in the world, when we have about 1500 years of Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, classical vernacular hymns, and even the more modern Mass songs, that someone would choose to sing a secular song written for a secular audience instead of one of those Catholic songs that were written specifically for the Mass.

In Christ,
Rand
 
decrumpit123 said:
A local girls school around my hometown plays the song “What if God was one of Us” by Joan Osborne at mass.
Click to expand...
Haha! About 5 years ago, when I was still a Protestant, I visited a friend’s church that had service in a park one Sunday. The pastor (Calvary Chapel, by the way) was the “super-hip” 45 year old, talkin’ like a surfer dude, Bermuda shorts wearing kinda guy who played guitar like a rock star. He and his 22 year old wife sang this song as part of their worship service, only they changed the lyrics:

“You know that God was one of us
And he lived amo-o-o-o-ng us
Just a man like one of us…”

It was ridiculous, I mean they rhymed us with us throughout the whole song. My wife and I still laugh about it whenever we hear that song on the radio.
 
I can’t believe they are playing that song at a Mass! At least the Protestant guy had the scruples to try and change the words but he shouldn’t have bothered either, he just sounded silly. Just because a Song mentions God dosn’t make it Worship!

That Song doesn’t even awknowledge that Jesus really came to earth… “What if He did? What would His name be? His Own people wouldn’t know Him? He’d be a SLOB?” Come on. Those people have totally missed the point of singing in church! What to tell the music director/nuns at the school? Them them that it’s inappropriate because it’s irreverent and fails to show any form of Worship to God, and that God is not honored by people questioning His existance in Mass.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top