Least Favorite Songs at Mass

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h(name removed by moderator)2four:
Found these sites if you can’t get enough complaining on this one:

jimmyakin.org/2004/07/since_its_sunda.html

mgilleland.com/music/moratorium.htm

Be prepared to chuckle…:rotfl:
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Chuckle…!!!

I’m roaring with laughter, and my kids are looking at me like I’ve lost my mind!

Here’s sample of a parody hymn:

Gather Us In
Here in this place, a bad song is starting,
Now will the altar turn into a stage.
All that is holy is slowly departing,
Making a way for the coming New Age.

Gather us in, though we are like captives.
But to miss Mass on Sunday, that would be wrong.
But Lord hear our plea, regarding M. Haugen:
Give him the courage to put down that bong.

:rotfl:

Thanks for the links, and the yuks…:clapping:
 
City of God

Awake from your slumber!
Arise from your sleep!
The homily’s over!
It wasn’t too deep!

:sleep: :yawn: 😛

Sorry, these were just toooooo funny. :o
 
Great links, thanks. jimmyakin.org/2004/07/since_its_sunda.html

Wise words from the Jimmy Akin site:

"I don’t love current church music either, it drove me to the Episcopal church for a while when I valued such things over truth. But I have learned something first hand that I read in C S Lewis (who hated the anglican hymns). Those second-rate poems set to third-rate music are being sung by a saint in the pew next to me, and I am not worthy to lace his boots. I remind myself of that every time we turn to On Eagles Wings or Hosea.

That said, I would be happy if they switched back to older hymns, giddy if all the music were sung in latin. Until that day, I use it as a lesson in humility."

Nuff said.
 
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SeekerJen:
I cannot stand “Let There Be Peace on Earth”. Ridiculous. It’s a pop song! I’m pretty sure there isn’t even a mention of a deity in the lyrics.

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No deity?
“With God as our father
Brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother
in perfect harmony.”

What I really hate is “Take the word of God with you as you go”. Now that is awful lyrics with even worse melody.

jp2fan
 
I am a convert to Catholicism from evangelical Protestantism. (April 10, 2004).

For the last ten years or more, my Protestant churches all sang “Praise and Worship” choruses, and a “Twenty Minute Worship Workout” (twenty minutes of singing) was and IS the standard in all services. Drop in on you local Assemblies of God or Evangelical Free church; you’ll see what I mean.

My husband and I got to the point where we sat out in the lobby and waited for the Twenty Minute Worship Workout to end before we went into church. Much of the music is unsingable, and many of the words are fluff, all feeling, no substance.

I HATE CCM! (Contemporary Christian Music). I hate it because it does not encourage the congregation to sing, but rather, encourages them to watch and sway and wave cigarette lighters, but since good Protestants don’t smoke (unless they are carnal or backslidden or Southern Baptists who live in tobacco country), they have to settle for waving their hands.

Also, I dislike any music that has a “star” singing it. A wise pastor once told me, “Unless you know the star in person, you really have no idea WHO you are listening to or what kind of life they lead when they leave the stage.” Ever since then, I like to listen to music that is sung by people in my church that I know.

And the term “stage” should not be part of a church service vocabulary.

I started attending Catholic Mass almost three years ago, because I was kicked out of my Protestant Church and had no where else to turn. (After you read what I wrote above, maybe you can see why they didn’t like me much. That’s not the reason I was kicked out, though.)

The first time I ever heard “Gather Us In” at Mass, I started crying. I spent the homily copying all the words down on a tiny piece of scratch paper. I loved the idea of everyone being gathered in, even me, as wretched and lonely as I was.

I still love the song. And I don’t think it’s damaged my knowledge of Catholic theology. (I had a great RCIA, very heavy, all taught by priests.)

Keep in mind that in any big Catholic Mass, there are probably other Protestants or Catholics who have been living in Protestantland for years. A song like this is more likely to strike a healing chord than some song about scary Catholic doctrine that convinces a Protestant that the Catholic Church really is the Whore of Babylon and that they should scram out of there fast!

Of course you should sing the scary songs; I’m not saying to avoid them. I’m just saying that a song like Gather Us In has worth, too.

I LOVE LORD OF THE DANCE! We sang it when I was in college. In fact, I like any song that is “allegorical.” I love Godspell, the version where Jesus is a clown. I LOVE “Chronicles of Narnia.” I have an easier time understanding the Gospel and theology in allegorical form than in factual form. I’ve never heard it sung in Mass at our Catholic Church. I agree that it would be more appropriate for a Folk Mass or maybe a Retreat or around a campfire, where the meaning can be explained for people who don’t get allegory.

Amazing Grace. A lot of Protestants don’t really like this song either, but it is comforting and familiar, especially at a funeral. Kind of like offering a guest a drink (Coca Cola, please) when they come to your house. So I don’t pick it apart. I agree, concentrate on “Grace.” Phillip Yancey, a Protestant writer and a very good friend and stauch ally of Catholics, has written a wonderful book called “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” If you read it, you may like the song better. (I keep waiting for Phillip Yancey to announce that he is converting to Catholicism, that’s how close he is.)

Anyway, just a different perspective.
 
What Catholic hymns would one find scarey and cause the listener to think that the Church is the Whore of Babylon? :eek:
 
On Eagles Wings is my absolute least favorite song. It’s awful - the tune is almost impossible to sing. I cannot say enough how much I hate that song! I also despise the songs that sound like 70s lounge music and are basically psychobabble like Anthem/We are Called, Pass it On, and then there’s Lord of the Dance which is in a category all on its own 🙂 Another pet peeve is when my white-bread suburban parish has to sing songs in Spanish but Latin is banned. If we’re going to sing in a language none of us speak, why not the official language of the Western Church? I have no problem with Spanish hymns in Hispanic parishes, but in my old parish it smacked of political correctness.Basically all the stuff in the Gather hymnal is junk - same iwth GLory and Praise. Thank God I’m now at a parish that just uses the Worship (red) hymnal.
 
Don’t know if this counts as a song at Mass, but there is a organist (who will remain anonymous) who regularly substitutes a David Hass ditty at the Proclamation of Faith:

“We remember how you loved us to your death and still we celebrate for you are with us, Lord. blah blah blah.”

I don’t see any room in the rubrics for substitution here.

I also don’t like anything that is set to irreverent music. Not too long ago I heard a Christian group at Mass singing a song that sounded like “If I were a rich man, yada da da da da da…” only they used the words of the Magnificat–like that was going to make it OK. My friend and I were shocked that it was even considered, let alone allowed.
 
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BK80734:
Another one I hate year-round is “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” and this is on several levels. First, I’m not so crazy about the “my God can kick your God’s butt” tone of the whole thing. Second, should the Gather hymnal really have hymns credited to Martin Luther and copyrighted to the 1978 Lutheran Book of Worship?

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:eek: :eek: :eek: How can you NOT love this song???!!! :tsktsk: This is definetly one of my all-time favorites!!! You don’t understand- it’s not "my God can kick your God’s butt- it’s more like “Jesus has already kicked the Old Nick’s behind all the way back to hell!”:clapping:
To me, it reminds me of the incredible power of God and that he will always protect us- the devil doesn’t stand a chance against him!
Oh well, I guess there’s no accounting for taste. Just kidding, just kidding!!🙂
Anyway, I’d rather hear this song by Martin Luther than 99.9999% of the songs written by Catholics that are sung in Church today!
 
***I really, really, REALLY dislike “Jerusalem, My Destiny”!!! ***
 
Can I also nominate “We are a Pilgrim People?” GAG! Yet another song praising the community instead of God. “We are a pilgrim people, we are the church of God, a family of believers…”
My all-time, least favorite song, though, would have to be “Shepherd me, O God,” especially when it’s substituted in place of the actual Psalm during the readings. Not only because I hate the song, but because I also love the psalm so much that I hate to see it tampered with in any way
 
My wife really dislikes “The Lord of the Dance”, which was a staple at her Convent (Parochial - for the Americans) School. Perhaps not surprisingly she is virtually the only one in her class who is still Catholic.

The Shakers performed a ‘spritual dance’ under the influence, supposedly, of the Spirit. This was a kind of Charasmatic convulsion. Knox in his book Enthusiasm (O.u.p, 1951) gives this description of this dance during the period in which this dancing became institutionalised

"Twelve of the company arranged themselves in two lines, back to back, in the centre of the apartment, … signing in a low voice some doggrel verses to a lively tune:

I love to dance, I love to sing,
And oh! I love my Maker;
I love to dance, I love to sing,
And oh! I love to be a Shaker, etc.

The several couples, pepetually smiling and giggling at each other, and flapping their hands in mid air, accompanied this strange kind of psalmody by a quick but monotonous shuffling of their feet, being an apology for a dance. This grotesque scene was prolonged for an hour and a half"

This made me think that the idea of the “Lord of the Dance” would fit in well with Shaker theology and had no place in a Catholic Church.

Chris from South Africa.
 
I attended the Lutheran church for about 10 years before joining the Catholic Church this year. The one thing I knew I would miss would be the music. The Lutherans sing such beautiful songs. Many of them from the 15th - 18th centuries. Real organ music. I almost fainted when I heard “A Mighty Fortress” at my parish while I was still in RCIA. I love the song. I never really thought about if it was inline with Catholic teaching, though. What shocked me was that a song written by Martin Luther was being played in a Catholic Church.

Staying on topic, I must agree, “Sing a New Church” has no place in Church. That is one of those songs that is just too “soft”. There is no meat, nothing to grab a hold of. The tune seems to be fitting for the processional, but those words. They’re almost meaningless.
 
Another different perspective:

Perhaps one reason I like songs like “Gather Us In,” songs about the community of believers, is that in Protestant circles, the current thinking is “Me and Jesus, we can do it all by ourselves. We don’t need no church.”

“Rugged individualism” is definitely the trend in Protestantism. Chuck Colson wrote about this in his wonderful book, “Being the Body.” (Read this, it has the most supportive Protestant viewpoint of Catholicism. Very, very uplifting.)

Protestant Christians are getting away from what they call the “organized church,” and going to non-denoms, home churches, family churches (just your family), and no church.

It’s very scary to read Protestant boards or talk to Protestants who tell you that organized church is established by sinful man, therefore it is often harmful and Christians are better off without it. Many Protestant Christians go wherever the worship is good, but they do not make any committments to a “church,” and may not necessarily come back to the same church body more than once.

This is not the Protestantism that I was raised with, but this is what I came out of! Shudder! It was very scary. Lone sheep are easy-pickin’s for the world’s wolves. No wonder Christianity often seems so ineffectual in the U.S.

So when I hear songs extolling the BODY of Christ, that is, His Body of believers, I want to cheer! Catholics, the emphasis upon unity of believers in our Church is something that we should embrace, not scorn. Praising Christ’s Church IS praising Christ, just as praising a man’s beloved wife is praising him, too.

Just try riding range all by yourself in lonely Protestantism for a while, and you will be glad to cry out, “Gather Us In!”
 
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jp2fan:
No deity?
“With God as our father
Brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother
in perfect harmony.”

What I really hate is “Take the word of God with you as you go”. Now that is awful lyrics with even worse melody.

jp2fan
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Whoops! I stand corrected. I generally tune that song out as soon as it starts up. Can’t stand it.
 
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misericordie:
Enough with feel-good distracting hymns such as: “On Eagles Wings”, and the protestant “Amazing Grace.”
Lets focus on ROMAN CATHOLIC HYMNS IN ROMAN CATHOLIC PARISHES.
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I agree! I find anything that has even hints of pop music (One Body, Eagles’ Wings, etc.) distasteful at mass. I have no problem with such music outside of mass – although I personally find Talbot type songs saccharin.

I prefer Chant and Latin hymns (Panis Angelicus, Ave Maria) during mass. Good Roman Catholic hymns in English (such as Immaculate Mary) would be my second choice.
 
Lance O:
Eagles Wings…Can’t stand that song!!!

But “Here I am Lord”… a Protestant song? :crying: I really like that song too.
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Some of the songs mentioned in recent posts as “Protestant” are not. Michael Joncas, who wrote Eagle’s Wings, is Catholic.

Darlin’, I’ll take a good, solid, orthodox Protestant song over the drivel published by some of the contemporary Catholic Press any day. After all, 90% of what main line Protestants “officially” believe is perfectly Catholic – believe it or not – since they accept the first four ecumenical councils, which defined the doctrine of God and gave us the Creeds.

Some Protestant gems now found in the better Catholic hymnals, and in the Liturgy of the Hours, no less – and which DESERVE to be there: :clapping:

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross
O Worship the King
At the Name of Jesus, Every Knee Shall Bow
My Song is Love Unknown
Come Down, O Love Divine
Once in Royal David’s City
Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation (Tune: Westminster Abbey)
Take Up Your Cross
Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones
Lo, He Comes, With Clouds Descending
For All the Saints

I could go on like this for a week. Check 'em out on cyberhymnal.org/ If the words on the CyberHymnal site do not reflect Catholic doctrine, they will have been changed by the editors of the Catholic Hymnals – and of course, almost all have been de-gendered. No Catholic (or Protestant either, for that matter) is singing, “Rise Up O Men of God” or “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.” But that is another rant altogether, and I shall forbear.

I still wince, however, whenever we sing “A Mighty Fortress” – not because it was written by Luther but because of that line referring to Jesus: “. . . the right man on our side/The man of God’s own choosing.”
 
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Edwin1961:
When I returned to the Byzantine Catholic Church, I found the songs rather shorter and to the point in lyric content…and of course we sing (chant) the Psalms.

However now in the Byzantine Rite, I mostly feel uncomfortable about the off key singing and lack of not singing the Tones in the correct melody.

(We have 8 specific musical melodies “Tones” that are rotated every 8 weeks. There is a different melody every week, when we chant the responses (Psalms and the Prayers) for a particular Sunday-these are known as the Kontakion and theTroparia.

Singing in a Byzantine Catholic Church is very beautiful if it is sung correctly. YES, it is more difficult to sing in a choir, but it is also accapelic!

WIth all that said as for talent, I can understand why you don’t like certain songs. IF songs were sung the way they were meant to be sung and played with the proper instraments, then a song like “Peace is flowing like a River” can be actually pleasant. :rolleyes: Lyric content…that’s a whole different story!

Go with God!
Edwin
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“Peace is flowing like a River” is nice and syncopated - almost. Quite foot-tapping, actually :clapping: :dancing: :bounce:

Not like “Kumbaya” or “Lord of the Dance” :eek: :bowdown2:
 
Some people might hate me for this, but I do not like hearing Amazing grace at Mass, for theological reasons. I am a Catholic and I do not want that song being sung at my funeral, Pie Jesu I like.
 
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