Least Favorite Songs at Mass

  • Thread starter Thread starter ireland
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Regarding “Lord of the Dance”… I will never feel the same way about this song after our pastoral associate demonstrated (in private, not at Mass!) that you can dance the Bunny Hop to it! 😃
 
I always liked “Were You There?”. I never thought it was irreverant or erroneous. Is there something specifically you don’t like about it that I should know about?
 
I’ve got one more dislike. He’s got the whole world in his hands. I just don’t like it.
 
40.png
Brendan:
Anything by Marty Haugen or David Haas
Click to expand...
Thankfully, I had been unfamiliar with Marty Haugen, but was recently at a Mass elsewhere in which the opening song was this rather strident “All Are Welcome”:

[coy.ne.client2.attbi.com/RR-Songs.html#Welcome](All Are Welcome lyrics)

And they sang every verse. Ugh!

The closing song wasn’t much better, something that sounded more like it would’ve been at home at a civil rights march right after “We Shall Overcome”. Yuck.
 
No disrespect meant to Mother Mary, but the song Immaculate Mary has always bothered me. The way it’s usually sung, I feel like I’m being hit on the head every third note or so: im MAC ulate MARY, your PRAISES we SING. You REIGN now IN Heaven WITH Jesus our KING.The chorus is nice, tho!
 
I second “Gather Us In”. I can’t stand it. The “Shaker Melody” is a beautiful little tune but I don’t think the lyrics are suitable for Mass. Leave it for Copeland and others to put it to good use as in “Appalachian Spring.”
 
Has anyone heard that song that goes, “hey for the carpenter who leaves his tools, hey for the pharisee who leaves his rules”? I was visiting another parish, and this one was the recessional. :eek: :eek: It was awful, and sung to a tune that sounded like we should all be hoisting our beer steins and swaying back and forth. I stopped singing after the first verse. I just couldn’t sing it!

Other songs I especially hate are “Ashes” and “Mary Did You Know”. The most awful song is one called “I Want to Walk the Path that John the Baptist Walked.” This one was written by someone in our choir. It is sung to a bouncy tune with lots of drumming and they try to get everyone clapping. They sang this last Sunday and I almost started laughing. It was such horrible music and I suppose the “composer” didn’t stop to think about how St. John the Baptist’s path ended. (No, the lyrics didn’t include any references to all of us getting our heads cut off.)

Unfortunately, most of the music I hear at mass is banality set to horrid tunes. 😦
 
I really, really, really, really, really, REALLY dislike intensely “guitar” or “folk” Masses. I avoid them at all costs.

HOWEVER, I have been to a few:

Casting my vote for worst song ever sung at Mass: “Great Things Happen When God Mixes With Us.”

*Great things happen when God mixes with us (x2)
Great and beautiful, wonderful things;
Great things happen when God mixes with us

Some find peace, some find hope
Some people even find joy*

I forget the rest (Thank you, Lord, for that small favor 😉 )

GHASTLY!!!

My all-time “favorite” ghastly performance, though, was when the lead guitarist broke into a rousing rendition – on his electrical guitar, no less – of “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man.”

GHASTLY (x 2) !!! :eek:
 
awww, I really like “Lord of the Dance” (especially the melody), but I cringe whenever I hear this really horrible choir try all the high notes in “Sheperd Me, Oh God” (even though I like that song too)
 
I just returned from mass and they played a recording of Somewhere Over the Rainbow before the homily. Fortunately, this was not my parish. I was quite stunned, to say the least.

oremus
 
40.png
bquinnan:
I especially dislike songs that seem to be about praising the Community rather than worshipping the Lord.
Click to expand...
I have to ditto that!! I would go as far as saying that I especially dislike Masses that seem to be about praising the Community and self worship rather than worshipping the Lord!
 
ireland said:
😦 What are your least favorite songs at Mass? I would like to nominate “Lord of the Dance” and “How Can I Keep from Singing”.
Click to expand...

Have to agree with you there brother Irish :bigyikes:
 
40.png
Sheen:
My all-time “favorite” ghastly performance, though, was when the lead guitarist broke into a rousing rendition – on his electrical guitar, no less – of “Put Your Hand in the Hand of the Man.”
Click to expand...
Great – now you’re triggering the release of some mercifully repressed memories. 😉 I remember the “folk Mass” my parents used to take us to, where they would do songs like Glen Campbell’s “Try a Little Kindness” and Daniel Boone’s “Beautiful Sunday” (“Hey, hey, hey, It’s a beautiful day!”). Then there’s “Morning Has Broken” straight from the OCP hymnal, written by the now-Muslim Cat Stevens.
 
I’m not a big fan of Canticle of the Son (Sun?) - which reads like a Wica anthem.
 
I second “Canticle of the Sun”…it sounds too new agey. Unfortunately our choir director is very fond of it so i get to hear it every other week :banghead:

I also REALLY hate “Gather us In”…drives me absolutely bonkers!

My parish is on a university campus so we’re all students there. For daily mass we have no choir because most people are at class and can’t make it so the music comes off of CDs our pastor has someone play…waaaaaaaay toooooo much Michael W. Smith :crying:

Maria:whacky:
 
My vote is for “Gather Us In” as least favorite, although “Ashes” and “Table of Plenty” are close behind! There’s one, I can’t quite remember the name, something in the refrain about …‘He is mighty God, Lord of All…’, etc. which our country-western-ish guitar choir use to sing allll the time. My husband threatened to bring a kazoo to Mass and accompany them!
 
40.png
kellie:
Awwwwwwww thanks Katholish,

Now I remember that song Lord Of The Dance

I used to sing it at school

I love it

I havent heard it in years

Love Kellie
Click to expand...
Watch the watch,…Watch the watch…You are getting sleepy,…sleepy,…sleepy. When you wake up, you will not remember the nightmare song “Lord of the Dance”.
 
40.png
toutestgrace:
I generally don’t like any of the anemic songs from the 70s-80s: Ray Repp, Dan Schutte, etc. Maybe they sounded OK when a few strong folk singers belted them out, but they transfer very poorly to congregational singing.

Another ick factor for me are songs like Lord of the Dance (the Shaker Song so beautifully orchestrated in Copeland’s Appalachian Spring) and Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee (Beethoven’s Ninth of-all-things!!!). There are very few church versions that don’t sound almost comical in their plodding tempo.
Click to expand...
Code: 
I am tempted to comment on the "song" *Lord of the Dance* with a coloquialism such as "barfo!", but I done been teached gooder manners than that. Perhaps just as grating on my nerves are the sung Psalms where the words have been gerrymandered to fit the feminist agenda. An example of this "intrusive language" is the changing of "His right hand has won the victory for Him, His holy arm" to "GOD"S  right hand has won the victory for US(??), GOD"S holy arm". Note that it matters not at all to the liturgical feminists that the *meaning* of Scripture has to be done away with as long an all male references to God are done away with.
Karl Keating scored a big one in my book when he said in a recent newsletter that he doesn't use the term "inclusive language", but calls it what it *is*,"feminist language".           
                    Rick Bohler         <*~><
 
I second the recommendation to read, “Why Catholics Can’t Sing” by Thomas Day. He talks quite a bit about the ***Vox Dei ***songs, where the assembly sings God’s words. There are some very popular, catchy songs that do this, and even if I like them musically I don’t like them at Mass where they are inappropriate for WORSHIP. In addition to having protest-culture roots, a lot of these songs are simply unsingable by anyone but trained folk singers–long notes stretching off the page that I could not reach even if I were inclined to.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top