No kidding, me too. Thanks alot for the earworm, bup.
“Great is Thy Faithfulness”; at least, that’s my favorite year-round song.
I’d have to think for quite some time if I’m including Christmas songs.
I just read the reference, and also Wikipedia’s page on the ship that sank.
Amazing. Thank you for sharing this.
As nice a song as Eagle’s Wings is, I always have to suppress a chuckle at the very beginning.
First line: “You who dwell in the shelter of the lord”.
I always hear the first two words as “yoo-hoo!”
mmm
“There is a fountain filled with blood.” I have no idea what the lyrics are, but it’s the only song my dad could play on piano, and he enjoyed playing it.
I’m counting Jerusalem as a hymn, even though the CoE says it isn’t. Written based on a William Blake poem, catchy tune and anthemic music, mocked by Monty Python…pretty much perfect.
I love the beginning of the one verse of Oh Come All Ye Faithful:
Yea, Lord, we greet thee…
I feel childlike and full of glee: YAY, LORD!
This one is a bit High Church, but it is very beautiful
The note the boy treble hits is almost in bat country
I reluctantly was dragged to church as a child. Hymns were something to be endured, not enjoyed. Borrrring!
Go forward twenty years. A friend of mine–a church choirmaster and organist, who also happened to need a bass voice for his choir–asked me to join. He knew I could sing bass, and I thought I’d try it. To my great surprise, I enjoyed singing hymns and anthems and doxologies and so on in the choir as an adult. I ended up singing in his church choir every Sunday for many years, until I moved far away. Those were good times.
My favourite hymns:
“Love Divine, All Love’s Excelling,” to the Welsh tune of Hyfrydol. My overall favourite; I want this played at my funeral.
“The Navy Hymn.” Many of the congregants at this church were WWII veterans, and we would adjust the lyrics for the branch of service at funerals: “Oh hear us as we raise our prayer/For those in peril in the air,” for example.
“Amazing Grace,” of course. Our choir could do this one without looking at the music, and in perfect harmony.
And though it was not part of our regular “lead the congregation” Sunday service hymns, I’ll have to add Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from Messiah. We did that often enough, and I loved singing it every time.
**Lead Me to Calvary
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
Just As I Am
A Mighty Fortress
**
I went to a Catholic Church about 5 years ago, and heard one that I quite liked, but am not sure of what the title is. “For Those Who Now Labor”? Can’t find that on Youtube, so, I don’t know. Something like that.
Great story about that piece: performance rights were restricted to the Vatican only and no-one was allowed to sell the sheet music anywhere else. Then Mozart, aged 14, attended a service, went away and wrote it down, with just one return visit to check that he’d got it all. When the Pope heard about it, he demanded a quiet word…
essentially, “Son, if God has given you a talent like that then it’s not for any man, even me, to presume to object”.
Allegri didn’t originally write those top Cs, but vain castrati competing to see who could add the best improvisations were soon stretching all the way up there, and they’ve stuck.
For the Beauty of the Earth.
[quote=“terentii, post:61, topic:743772”]
Are you sure about this? I think this was a work by Haendel, not Beethoven.
[/QUOTE]:smack: You are so right. I don’t know where my brain was when I wrote that. But I had been watching Die Hard, maybe that had something to do with it.
Our beloved pastor was reassigned a few years ago and this was the processional at his last Mass with us. I got emotional as soon as the song started and couldn’t sing much as I wanted to!
In the 1936 version of Little Lord Fauntleroy, with Freddie Bartholomew, the boy and his grandfather attend church one Sunday. The opening hymn is “Crown Him with Many Crowns”, and interesting choice I think. It’s more challenging than the usual run of hymns one hears in movies.
It starts here, about 1:03:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxgjgC6EGoA
Jesus Christ Is Risen Today
Angels we have heard on high
Guide me, oh Thou great Jehovah
God of Our Fathers. I like the little fanfares that open and punctuate the hymn. I love the imagery in the first verse: “God of our fathers, Whose almighty hand/Leads forth in beauty all the starry band/Of shining worlds in splendor through the skies”
The Truth from Above (harmonized by Vaughan Williams).
Reminds me of
Holy, Holy, Holy! All the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
I looked through the songs given. I don’t see enough consensus to attempt a poll. How Great Thou Art had 5 mentions. Amazing Grace had seven. Otherwise its all over the board.
There are a lot of great songs mentioned. I’ve been listening to them on youtube. Many were completely new to me. Different church denominations often use entirely different songs for their services.
Wow. So many of my favorites have already been named. I love hymns, love singing hymns.
Here are three of my favorites that haven’t been named:
Our God, He is Alive
In Christ Alone
Flee As a Bird
Found it – Moved By The Gospel, Let Us Move
The Maker calls creation good, so let us now express
with sound and color, stone and wood,
the shape of holiness.
Let weavers form from broken strands a tapestry of prayer.
Let artists paint with skillful hands their joy in lament and care,
Then mime the story: Christ has come.