Jokes about bad liturgical music

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I came up with this one day and it is now very hard not to snicker. Think of the tune of “One Bread, One Body”

One Song, the Same Song
We hear each week
Can we receive without this song?
Don’t mind the season
Don’t mind the year
It’s not Communion without this song.

😃
 
ljubim said:
because they do an awful version of that hymn the Israelites sang in the reading where the sea fell on the Egyptians. They’re already so hippy-awful, and it really comes out during this song. It would be a lot more funny were it not during MASS.
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Is this:
I will sing unto the Lord
For He has triumphed gloriously
The horse and rider is thrown into the sea - Ker-plop?

If it is, then one does not use a slide whistle but inserts the finger in the cheek, blows and makes a popping noise.
 
In the early '80s we moved to a new parish.

The wife and I could hardly keep a straight face when we all sang “Sing a New Song” week after week, year after year.:rolleyes:
(Why hasn’t it been updated to “Sing the Same Song Unto the Lord…”?)
 
The_Reginator said:
Back in the '80s (an Anglican at the time) I was in a folk ‘choir’. :o:o:o

One member of this choir was a teacher and it was time for her class to receive First Communion.
She had us singing a similar (or is it the same??) song:
“Friends all gather 'round the table of the Lo-ord…”
Over and over and over and over and ….
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Reg: I think that may be different (but it sounds strangely familiar) – the end of this little ditty goes “Gather 'round the table of the Lord, eat His body, drink His blood, and we’ll sing a song of love, Alelu, alelu, alelu-u-u-u-u-ia!” The time period is right on – I was thinking '70’s as well.

:eek:

Yeah, boy!! I memorized it as a kid, but it just always seemed silly to me. Not one of what I thought of as “real” hymns.
 
doanli said:
Oh yeah, back in the 70s!

runs screaming out of the room

I have to admit I loved and laughed at my Grandpa’s comments as a kid though he was serious. Thought it was awful, “damn shame”, he’s say, and then he would mince words about the priest growing his hair out long and growing a beard.

But Grandma and Grandpa were heartbroken at the changes to Holy Mass.
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I remember my grandparents not being happy with the changes, either. My favorite “chestnut” that I heard over and over was “Water will wear away stone but only after centuries.” I think what Gram meant was that some things (like the Catholic Church) change ever so slowly, if at all. I think that was okie dokie by her - change was not welcome at all!

Some of the music, well, I think that was a horse of a different color. Gram despised attending “folk Mass” - but took us kids since it was a bit more ‘hip.’ :cool:
 
This sunday we had the misfortune of attending the 5:00 Mass which was a true test for me.

First we came in and kneeled, while having to pray through the band in the upper balcony practicing their music. Not only practiced, but loudly talking and laughing between themselves in between songs.

Mass started, rotten music all around but I offered it up, but then we were all standing and the choir (guitars, drums … badaboom!, and some clinky instrument that I didn’t recognize) started singing some song I didn’t recognize until to my surprise I recognized a sentence in there. I look over to my husband and he looked over at me when we both recognized “We worship you, we give you thanks”. It took us THAT long to realize that they were singing a bastardised version of the Gloria! I couldn’t even follow with them because they were adding phrases I didn’t know. So that prayer was lost to me.

At another point during Mass, once again they started singing another song we didn’t know, until I recognised another sentence “He will come to judge the living and the dead”. This time once I recognized after all that time, what was happening, I tried to recite the prayer quickly… to no avail, they were too fast.

No more 5:00 pm Mass for me! Grrr
 
Loboto-Me said:
to my surprise I recognized a sentence in there. I look over to my husband and he looked over at me when we both recognized “We worship you, we give you thanks”. It took us THAT long to realize that they were singing a bastardised version of the Gloria! I couldn’t even follow with them because they were adding phrases I didn’t know. So that prayer was lost to me.

At another point during Mass, once again they started singing another song we didn’t know, until I recognised another sentence “He will come to judge the living and the dead”. This time once I recognized after all that time, what was happening, I tried to recite the prayer quickly… to no avail, they were too fast.
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Oh, I have experienced THIS as well - singing the responses and/or prayers would be okay (I like to sing) IF they had a standardized song. If my husband and I go to a different church we are totally lost! I KNOW what part of the Mass “should” be here, but they start singing a song I don’t recognize, and by the time you figure it out (if you do at all) you’ve missed it! :mad: (Still offered it up)

My husband is the opposite – he came up educated by the good sisters in a parochial school and NEVER sang prayers or responses! He refuses to sing at all! We have had the experience of having musicians at Mass who sing with so many flourishes and fancy harmonies that the “average” parishoner just gives up trying to sing along, too. 🤷
 
sskelly said:
My old novus ordo choir used to sing “We Have Been Told” a lot. There was a line “all who live in Me will bear great fruit” - it was impossible to sing without it sounding like “bear grapefruit.” Always wondered what the congregation thought.
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Oh no, we sing that all the time. I never thought of bear grapefruit. I’m in trouble now.
 
allybear said:
I came up with this one day and it is now very hard not to snicker. Think of the tune of “One Bread, One Body”

One Song, the Same Song
We hear each week
Can we receive without this song?
Don’t mind the season
Don’t mind the year
It’s not Communion without this song.

😃
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I’ve been to parishes like this :banghead: Are they just too lazy to learn anything else??
pnewton said:
Is this:
I will sing unto the Lord
For He has triumphed gloriously
The horse and rider is thrown into the sea - Ker-plop?

If it is, then one does not use a slide whistle but inserts the finger in the cheek, blows and makes a popping noise.
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That’s the one! The tambourine choir LOVES it… :rolleyes:
 
The_Reginator said:
In the early '80s we moved to a new parish.

The wife and I could hardly keep a straight face when we all sang “Sing a New Song” week after week, year after year.:rolleyes:
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That’s the best one so far. 😃

What about the ever present Mass of Creation, aka “The Massive Cremation”?

Here are some other hymns where YOU, yes, YOU are God:
  1. You Are Mine (…“I have loved you with an everlasting love…” (well, gee, thanks Joe)
  2. I Am the Light of the World
  3. I Danced In The Morning (quite likely the strangest hymn in the hymnal)
  4. I Myself Am the Bread Of Life (well then, I’ve chosen the wrong saviour)
  5. I, The Lord of Sea and Sky
  6. Long Have I Waited (…"for your coming home to ME and living deeply MY new life)
  7. Come Back To Me
There are a ton more, but you get the idea…
 
Our recessional this Sunday was “I’m trading my sorrows”, complete with motions, clapping, and responses; there is also a “hip” version of the Alleluia with improvised clapping.
 
We no longer have a “processional” hymn.
Just a “gathering” hymn/song. (Usually to a Gaelic melody.)
I suppose that compliments our “Summer Bible School” each year.
:mad:
 
daeve said:
This
One of the verses in Lift High the Cross goes something like this:

Each new born servant of the Crucified
Bears on his brow the sign of Him who died.

When you see it on the page though, you get Crucified Bears. My 12 year old boy sense of humor can’t help but laugh at that, although I’m finally able to do it mentally.

In We Give You Thanks, the third verse mentions “the fragrance of release”. I can’t imagine what it really means, but I’m sure you can imagine what my juvenile mind thinks.
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my Grandma’s Methodist church choir sang some hymn with a refrain along the lines of “gladly the something cross I’d bear” and of course I loved the song about the cross-eyed bear when I was little but could not imagine why Jesus had a pet bear at all. and Her personal favorite was Come to the church in the Wild Wood and somehow I connected it with the wild woods in Wizard of Oz with lions and tigers and bears. the whole experience colors my view of Methodists to this day and endears them to me for their menagerie.

yes I remember my kids making the same connection to that verse about the fragrance, seems written for a 7th grade mentality. Our parish at that time must have had a professional liturgist, the kind that gets paid to hunt out the newest and weirdest in liturgical music. I swear they had auditions so they could eliminate any guitar player with a vestige of talent, or any vocalist who under stood the concept of on key.
DCNBILL said:
On a Marian feast day, we were lined up in the back for the entrance song when the music minister announced, “Now let us greet our presider with the song Hail Holy Queen.”
The priest turned to me and said, “I am not going to process in to that!”
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this clearly is the prize winner for this thread, you get a cartload of rice a roni, the San Francisco treat
Trinity117 said:
Reg: I think that may be different (but it sounds strangely familiar) – the end of this little ditty goes “Gather 'round the table of the Lord, eat His body, drink His blood, and we’ll sing a song of love, Alelu, alelu, alelu-u-u-u-u-ia!” The time period is right on – I was thinking '70’s as well.

Yeah, boy!! I memorized it as a kid, but it just always seemed silly to me. Not one of what I thought of as “real” hymns.
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allelooo alleloo everybody sing alleloo for the lord has risen it is true
every body sing aaaaah uh lay loooooo
will God forgive us for the 70s–surely the music, w/o any of the other changes to the Mass of that era, are the reason so many of my generation are now buddhists or deadheads.
 
DCNBILL said:
On a Marian feast day, we were lined up in the back for the entrance song when the music minister announced, “Now let us greet our presider with the song Hail Holy Queen.”
The priest turned to me and said, “I am not going to process in to that!”
Click to expand...
this clearly is the prize winner for this thread, you get a cartload of rice a roni, the San Francisco treat
 
Trinity117 said:
Reg: I think that may be different (but it sounds strangely familiar) – the end of this little ditty goes “Gather 'round the table of the Lord, eat His body, drink His blood, and we’ll sing a song of love, Alelu, alelu, alelu-u-u-u-u-ia!” The time period is right on – I was thinking '70’s as well.

:eek:

Yeah, boy!! I memorized it as a kid, but it just always seemed silly to me. Not one of what I thought of as “real” hymns.
Click to expand...
allelooo alleloo everybody sing alleloo for the lord has risen it is true
every body sing aaaaah uh lay loooooo
will God forgive us for the 70s–surely the music, w/o any of the other changes to the Mass of that era, are the reason so many of my generation are now buddhists or deadheads.
 
puzzleannie said:
allelooo alleloo everybody sing alleloo for the lord has risen it is true
every body sing aaaaah uh lay loooooo
will God forgive us for the 70s–surely the music, w/o any of the other changes to the Mass of that era, are the reason so many of my generation are now buddhists or deadheads.
Click to expand...
It could always be worse. Churches could have gotten fixated on disco. Speaking of which, I have been looking for a disco Mass setting if anyone knows of one.
 
Whew…So I’m not alone here, then.

I >LOVE< the Catholic Church and am so happy to be back home, but as a musician I have to say the music is (largely) in excruciatingly bad taste… To say that I really find the folky songs off-putting would be a massive understatement. To me it isn’t a sacred sound at all… I would far rather hear plain chant… Or Gregorian style. These are simple-easy to learn and have a more holy sound to them than Joan Baez with a tambourine. Not only that pretty much everyone I know feels the same way (At least about the undesirability of the current music selection)

I realize that this is merely an aesthetic concern and not that big a deal on many levels, but… well, there it is.

Oh and while we’re on a “Hey, someone else used that tune”! - topic … has anyone else noticed that Paul Simon nicked the chords and melody to "Oh Sacred Head Wounded (Bach) for the song “America”?
 
this clearly is the prize winner for this thread, you get a cartload of rice a roni, the San Francisco treat

allelooo alleloo everybody sing alleloo for the lord has risen it is true
every body sing aaaaah uh lay loooooo
will God forgive us for the 70s–surely the music, w/o any of the other changes to the Mass of that era, are the reason so many of my generation are now buddhists or deadheads.

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Thanks for the prize, puzzleannie (LOVE Rice-A-Roni) 😉 – can I trade it in for a Liturgist/Sacristan who won’t chose to sing/play/process to ANY of the above-mentioned songs?

No wonder I have come to love EA . . . it is SILENT.

Deadheads, indeed!
 
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