The Song Remains The Same?

by Bryan

9 comments

1 hipparchia { 08.17.08 at 4:35 pm }

hard to go wrong with judy collins.

2 Michael { 08.17.08 at 4:53 pm }

Hard to go right with that song. Wish you’d posted a warning about the title–fortunately I managed to close the browser tab before it actually started.

I loathe that tune. Not to mention the theology behind it. Even bagpipes can’t make it palatable.

3 Steve Bates { 08.17.08 at 5:45 pm }

Michael, lighten up. Think back to the last time you enjoyed a service in your nearest cathedral (or a large Protestant church) of, say, the Mozart Requiem, or a Bach cantata. Who do you think was in the orchestra, in addition to a few church members? I’ll tell you, not just from observation but from direct personal experience: a whole boatload of Jews and (gasp) Unitarians like me, hired to flesh out the sections. We all put our core theologies aside for long enough to perform other people’s sacred music. The results are often glorious.

Don’t like it? don’t listen; nobody’s forcing you. But kindly refrain from taking a whack at the music or the musicians.

4 Steve Bates { 08.17.08 at 5:48 pm }

BTW, the Blind Boys of Alabama take the prize, for both inspiration and humor, by keeping the text to Amazing Grace but substituting the tune to House of the Rising Sun. I’m still grinning. 🙂

5 Michael { 08.17.08 at 8:22 pm }

Thank you for that gratuitously condescending comment, Steve, but had I wanted your opinion, I would’ve asked for it. As I am quite sure there are tunes that make your flesh crawl in precisely the same way this one does mine, you’re being both disingenuous and hypocritical. In point of fact, I do go out of my way to avoid having to listen to that schrecklich tune–which is exactly why I would have appreciated knowing what was going to be on the other end of that blind link I clicked.

6 Bryan { 08.17.08 at 9:15 pm }

Well, not everyone likes the pipes, because the tune most people use with the lyrics is a pipe tune so old no one knows where it came from but it is played by both Irish and Scottish pipers. It is often the first tune you learn on a practice chanter.

The lyrics are based on a prayer of King David and were written at the end of the 18th century. Because the author is associated with the abolition movement, the lyrics jumped to the US along with the movement.

The Blind Boys of Alabama sing the traditional rural Southern black version of the hymn, to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun”. This is a practice that is still common today in the rural South, where there were more guitars than pipes, and not many read music. You are apt to hear familiar hymns sung to different tunes all the time, but in a nation with a national anthem sung to the tune of an old drinking song, people should show a little understanding for the practice.

7 Steve Bates { 08.17.08 at 9:49 pm }

Michael, you heard 0.027 seconds of a tune you don’t like? <Patience_voice> Oh, horrow! </Patience_voice> 🙂

My point stands, that other people, including many musicians, partake of each other’s sacred music in a less judgmental way, not expecting it will suit their own tastes, musical or theological, but performing it and paying loving or at least respectful attention to it nonetheless. And you, Michael, are fortunate that we do so, however reluctant you are to admit it.

—

Bryan, thanks; I learned several things from your comment. “House of the Rising Sun” reminds me just a tiny bit of the tunes in shaped-note hymnals in and around Kentucky; I wonder if there’s a connection there. I was fortunate in college to have some friends who did shaped-note singing; now that was a good cleaning of the ears for those of us steeped in common-practice tonality! 🙂

Using the same tune for different texts is, of course, extremely common in the UU tradition, and the hymnal has been recompiled and republished not less often than once or twice a century. It’s hard on people who prefer their traditions cast in stone, but not many such people become UUs anyway. To each his or her own.

8 Michael { 08.17.08 at 10:22 pm }

I don’t know what the bug is up your ass, Steve, but something you apparently forgot, in your eagerness to find something objectionable in my original comment, is that I am also a musician. I may not have your years of experience yet, but I have enough. I’ve sung all manner of spiritual music, in all manner of spaces, and I’ve done so reverently and to the best of my abilities. Whether or not it was to my liking, my taste, or either set down or performed in the manner I would have preferred. Indeed, I get a dose of that just about every week at Mass in my very own parish, where the music choices–and the musicians–are almost never completely to my liking.

In case you hadn’t noticed, however, this is neither a church nor a concert hall. I have not been asked (or paid) to perform here, so your analogy doesn’t really hold. It is also common practice, on the intertubes, to let your readers know what they’re in for when they click on a link. You disagree with my taste in music. Fine. That’s your right. Just as it is my right to ignore your snotty and supercilious belittling of my taste.

9 Steve Bates { 08.17.08 at 11:42 pm }

“… something you apparently forgot, in your eagerness to find something objectionable in my original comment, is that I am also a musician.” – Michael

Sigh. That eagerness is in your imagination, but your original comment certainly has a strong and unconventional point of view.

“You disagree with my taste in music. Fine. That’s your right. Just as it is my right to ignore your snotty and supercilious belittling of my taste.” – Michael

Really? Where do I belittle your musical taste? I disagree with your condemnation of a tune almost universally admired, at least in my prior experience. But what I find frustrating is not your musical taste; it’s how quickly you resort to personal insults in response to disagreement. Resorting to phrases like “snotty and supercilious” certainly does nothing for the case you’re trying to make. Is your taste that fragile, that when you express contrarian views, you can’t take the inevitable heat in response?

“Indeed, I get a dose of that just about every week at Mass in my very own parish, where the music choices–and the musicians–are almost never completely to my liking.” – Michael

Maybe you should consider adjusting your liking. It’s what most serious musicians do, in the face of repeated evidence that their tastes are at odds with their colleagues’ tastes. I said “most”: some musicians instead become conductors.

The real irony, Michael, is that I like you, or at least I like your web persona. But your propensity to resort quickly to personally insulting language in response to otherwise polite strong disagreement is awfully tough to take. Not every strong disagreement on an issue has to be a basis for personal conflict.

As usual, Michael, I leave you with the last word… unless you use it to condemn the FSM or something equally blasphemous. 🙂