Like most Americans, I suppose, I’m more familiar with Jerusalem (“And Did Those Feet In Ancient Times…”) by William Blake as part of a Monty Python sketch than as a church hymn. A choir just sang the hymn at Reagan’s funeral.
Where can I find the melody as a .wav or midi online?
I was listening to the funeral online, and I couldn’t quite make out the words to the song, but from what I could hear, they weren’t Blake’s Jerusalem (besides, they’d be rather inappropriate: “In England’s green and pleasant land”).
Also, the original only has two verses, and this seemed to have three or four. Thus I propose it was the tune by Charles Parry, that was written for Blake’s poem, but with different words. Does anyone know what the words they were singing were?
(BTW, I love the original; it will be played at my funeral. I wish it were the English national anthem, rather than yawntastic God save the Queen.)
That was fast, APB! Thanks!
jjimm: Yeah, it’s hard to make out the words when they’re sung by a choir and you don’t go to church. But to me it sounded like Jerusalem, and that’s what I was looking for. I thought it was a little odd that a song about England would be played at Reagan’s funeral; but Reagan was a bit of an anglophile, and was proud of his Irish heritage. So I can see an English hymn being played.
I’d guess tthe alternative lyrics weren’t these: http://www.diamondgeezers.org.uk/sounds/lyrics/jerusalem2.html