The Navy Hymn
Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!
Going Home
Loch Rannoch
Category Archives: Music
The Battle Hymn of the Republic
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
Or is it something else?
“The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is a wonderfully catchy tune that many have sung on the Fourth and even in church, because it talks about God’s truth marching forward, right? Just like “Onward Christian Soldiers,” isn’t it?
The writer, Julia Ward Howe, was a Unitarian, poet, and active supporter of abolition, women’s rights, prison reform, and education. Her public support of these issues was opposed by her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, and put a strain on their marriage for years. He wanted her to keep her work domestic. When she published a book of poetry anonymously (but discovered a short time afterward), Samuel felt betrayed.
In November 1861, Samuel and Julia were visiting Union encampments close to Washington, D.C. as part of a presidential commission. Some of the men began singing, and one of their songs was “John Brown’s Body,” a song in praise of the violent abolitionist John Brown.
“John Brown’s body lies a-moldering in the grave
But his soul goes marching on.
“He’s gone to be a soldier in the Army of the Lord,
His soul goes marching on.”
Reverend James Freeman Clarke was touring with the Howes and remarked that while the tune was great, the lyric could be stronger. He suggested Julia write new words to it, and she replied that she had had a similar idea. Continue reading The Battle Hymn of the Republic
That “piece of paper”
I offer the song above, dredged from my college years, as documentary evidence of the facts I’m about to tell you. Because you won’t hear about this much of anywhere else. This is Lost History, things that happened but are now officially non-things, like Stalin’s old revolutionary comrades and Hillary Clinton’s emails.
“A piece of paper.” “Just a piece of paper.” It’s a phrase I first recall encountering in an article about an actress in a magazine (Life, perhaps), back when I was a kid. “Why haven’t we gotten married?” she replied to a question about her love life. “What’s a marriage license? Just a vulgar piece of paper.”
I’m sure she wasn’t the first to put it that way, but after that I noticed that I encountered it again and again. Actors said it. Writers. Rock musicians. Poets. Intellectuals. “What’s a marriage license? Just a vulgar piece of paper. What does such an object have to do with real love?”
This form of expression stopped appearing, I think, sometime in the 1980s. It’s clear now what happened. The Big Heads of the left realized that the promotion of homosexual marriage would be a splendid hammer with which to bash traditional Christian sexual morality.
And suddenly the cry was no longer, “It’s just a piece of paper!” but “It’s the Most Important Piece of Paper in the universe! Anyone prevented from having this wonderful, transcendent piece of paper has been denied their deepest human right!”
This sudden dialectical U-turn was not accompanied by any admission that they might have been wrong in their old position. No, the old slogan just went down the memory hole, along with Pres. Obama’s college records and Che Guevara’s murders. “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia, and progressives have always revered marriage.”
Because it’s all about the political narrative. And the narrative runs in whatever channel will best serve the Cause.
Pilgrims’ Hymn
This piece by the late Stephen Paulus bears repeated listening. The video was recorded last year in the Milwaukee Art Museum with the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire Choir under the direction of Dr. Gary R. Schwartzhoff.
‘Sing no matter the circumstances.’
Loren Eaton riffs on name recognition vs. talent in light of the band U2 performing as street artists in the NY subway. “The super-scraggly quartet of apparently starving artists only looked different than the boys from Dublin; the songs were the exactly the same.” But did they get same crowd in disguise?
“Amazing Grace”
For your delectation and inspiration, here’s Sissel Kyrkjebø, the pride of Bergen, doing a fine arrangement of “Amazing Grace” at the wedding of one of her band members. This is essentially the same arrangement, by Andrae Crouch, she did on her “Innerst i Sjelen” album. This recording lacks the quality of the studio version, but the live performance in a Norwegian church has charms of its own. Have a good weekend.
Song for Maundy Thursday
Talking Hymns with Kevin Twit
Kevin Twit of Indelible Grace, at Cathedral Church of the Advent, Birmingham, Alabama, with Matt Schneider.
The Importance of Being Bernstein
“One of the keys to interpreting Bernstein’s career thus seems to involve the importance of music education—not just playing band in high school, or hearing a few minutes of Bach on the radio as you drive home from school, but actually studying the mechanics of music and appreciating its fruitful historical unveiling.”
Bernstein drew many people into his music and helped them appreciate higher arts in general.
The Kellys by Mick Moloney
Here’s a fun song about how there are too many Irishmen in the world. I first heard this on a cassette many years ago. For our younger readers, a cassette was like a hard drive made from black tape, which was held in a tape deck that would play non-digital audio that sounded way better than anything we have today. It was as if you were in the room with the musicians.