16 January 2025

In my late teens, along with my Mum, I belonged to the Bognor Regis Choral Society. One evening we found ourselves very passionately singing a (Schubert?) song. Classical stuff, so it must be all right? !!!
The words were, "Come, come, come, ere the night be past; Come, come, come and yield me joy at last." Simultaneously, Mum and I had a fit of the giggles as we suddenly realised exactly what the words were asking and looked around at our fellow members, mostly very upright, moral, not-so-young, well-behaved members of the Methodist church and Salvation Army!
Tunes are what we respond to first and foremost when we sing, often not even noticing the words we are using. How many, many times John and I have been asked to have, "Jerusalem" or "I vow to thee, my country" at weddings! If you look at the words, one is a 'protest song' and the other a pledge of allegiance to the country; both very stirring, beautiful and appropriate in the right context, but not, really, the right WORDS for a wedding. So often they have been chosen because they are set to such wonderful, rousing music.
I am glad to say that, both firmly committed Christians, our Organists are sensitive to words as well as music-settings so the words we sing in our hymns are usually what leads the decision-making when we have our "music meetings". Often a good  music-setting, one well-known and appropriate will be searched for for a new hymn.
When you think about it, hymns are poems set to music and, in my view, a poem is something, an emotion, an idea, a thought that a poet expresses on my behalf that I can't, or find difficult, to express for myself; so what are we saying to ourselves and to God though the words of any particular hymn?
Next time you are singing  hymns on a Sunday don't just go into "auto pilot"; look at the words you are singing and think about them: God can speak to you through a hymn as powerfully as through any sermon.
"Grant that what we sing with our lips we may believe in our hearts and what we believe in our hearts we show forth in our lives .... "
(RSCM Choristers' Prayer)

With love
Jacquie xx