Featured A Bar Room Ditty?

It's been a few years but when I was in youth group an activity was to sing Amazing Grace to the tune of a popular song.

The winner used "Take me out to the ball game."

Rob

 

As a lover of most all kinds of music (There are two kinds of sound; noise, and music, music is that which is pleasing to the ear) It has always been my contention that music is Amoral (without moral principles) It is the lyrics or words that are assigned that determines whether it be Moral or Immoral. Yes there are several hymns that were adapted from "bar tunes"..

 

Many (most?) hymn tunes are shared with secular songs - dance or folk tunes & tunes derived from classical compositions.

I was challenged after playing "Waly, waly" (The water is wide) to "When I survey the wondrous cross."

"Glorious things of thee are spoken" is normally sung to a tune from a Haydn quartet - also used for "Deutschland uber alle" - Hitler's national anthem.

A catchy tune will always find words. When I write a hymn, I normally have a tune with the right meter in mind.

The only specific bar song I am aware of being taken over is "Champagne Charlie" . "Bless his name he sets me free."

 

If Music is Neutral

Absolutely not true, music itself communicates apart from words. Your presupposition is false.

 

And "God save the king" has an interesting history. Written after the Jacobite invasion in 1745, supported by the Scots.

Included verses -

O Lord our God arise
Scatter our enemies
And make them fall.
Confound their politics
Frustrate their knavish tricks
On thee our hopes we fix
God save us all.

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!

 

Brother rsr's answer, pasted below, is the correct one, in my opinion. In general this charge is not accurate.

Obviously there are some tunes of which we do not know their origins. Often combined with this "bar room ditties" idea is the "fact" that John Wesley (or Martin Luther, or John Newton, or surely someone important) asked, "Why should the Devil have all the good music?" as a justification for stealing the world's music. I've never seen that proven true, either.

In addition to the Star-Spangled Banner (which is not in our song book), I am aware of another tune that has been identified as a drinking song. There is a prohibition text in The Sacred Harp that the prohibitionists, ironically and apparently deliberately, set to the drinking song Krambambuli. The title is O Come Away. I'm not aware of it being in any church hymnals, but it may be.

If my memory serves, I think I once heard "Amazing grace how sweet the sound" sung to "The House of the Rising Sun" (the one by The Animals). [But not in church.]

 

It works both ways - I understand that on a Yorkshire church outing a couple got lost on Ilkley Moor.
A song was made up to welcome their return - "Ilkley Moor Bah T'at" to the hymn tune Cranbrook, now used occasionally for "While Shepherds watched their flocks."

 

The trouble with Cranbrook is the the parody became extremely popular, so that singing hymns was singing to a popular song.

But when you sing that repeated last line becomes very powerful. Especially compared with the usual tune for While shepherds watched.

 

We sing Cranbrook from William Walker's Christian Harmony, with Doddridge's "Grace! 'tis a charming sound!" text.

Here is Chris Brown of West Yorkshire leading it (July 2015 at Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, England):


What is your usual tune for "While shepherds watched their flocks by night?"

 

One song book gets back close to the date -- 1844 -- that is often given with Rowland Hill and the devil's tunes quote. This is The Christian's Spiritual Song Book by John Stamp in 1845 (3rd edition), "upwards of 500 spiritual songs adapted to popular tunes."

Another piece on Luther and Bar Songs can be found HERE.

 

The tune "everybody" sings it to is Winchester Old, which IMO is a weak tune for such wonderful words. Even when sung by a top choir.

Cranbrook is a great tune. I think it was composed for "Grace, 'tis a charming sound."

Is "Ilkley moor bah t'at" known over there?

 

We do this quite often in my church; I think it works very well.
You can sing Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun, and it works, except that it's hard to keep the words of the latter out of one's mind while singing the former.

Some tunes are totally inappropriate. You wouldn't sing Amazing Grace to the tune of The Laughing Policeman even though it fits.

 

I often think of this verse in connection with the U.K.'s current negotiations with the E.U.

 

I think the common tune in our section is an arrangement tune generally called Christmas. I say I think because I recall that text is in our book, but we generally never sing it. I'll have to remember to look tonight and see what tune it is. The tunes I associate with "While shepherds watched" are Glory Shone Around by T. J. Allen and Sherburne by Daniel Read. Since they are fuging tunes, they are more commonly sung at singing conventions rather than church. These two are not in our church books but in our Sacred Harp.

I am not familiar with it, but it is probably known in certain circles.