I have to admit that I'm getting so incredibly ticked off by the endless stream of prunes out there who see fit to change the words of songs, hymns and carols.
We have 'warlike' words replaced by 'comfortable' words and we have the traditional hymns changed to be unisex (what a load of tosh that is) or to remove the chance of offending someone or other for some reason or another, but to be honest I find the changes to be generally irrelevant and wrong.
Having just found a version where 'the baby awakes' has become 'the poor baby awakes' - the 'bright sky' has become merely 'sky' and so many other changes between the version now exist that it's a wonder anyone sings it right anymore. I found eighteen different versions (made a distraction whilst I drank tea) of 'Away in a manger' and when I did a cursory scan of many of the hymns that I've known for many years, was equally appalled with some of the many ways people have weakened them by their politically correct, gender-bender, meddling!
A few 'for instances':
From 'For All the Saints' we have a change from:
"O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold, fight as the saints who nobly fought of old, and win with them the victor's crown of gold'
Which turns into
'Still may your people, faithful, true and bold, live as the saints who nobly fought of old, and share with them a glorious crown of gold.'
I was in a church recently where I was told, "We don't sing that song here!" The song? 'Onward Christian Soldiers!"
The world has gone totally bonkers :)
3 comments:
I have to agree with you. Last year, when I and my spouse were planning the renewal of our wedding vows, we wanted choose the hymn "When all the Saints" as one, for two reasons, I was about to retire from the Army after 43 years and my spouse remains an active member of the reserve forces.
We had to ask for the 'old version' as it was described as it is not normally sung in the church we were attending.
I am pleased to say that the Vicar agreed, especially as he is a TA Chaplain himself.
I am unsure of why people think it best to modernise or to sanitize hymns, but if we have sung them over the ages, we should continue to do so, as written and used and loved by successive generations.
Indeed. What's interesting to me, however, is how we don't change the lyrics to many of our Advent and Christmas hymns, and that so many people continue to sing them without batting an eye. I've been noticing this as I have been preparing the worship music for my church over the last month. There are obviously many people who don't pay much attention to the words or they would be taken aback by how 'in-your-face' so many of the lyrics are! If they did, I don't think we'd have so many holiday churchgoers.
There are the odd word changes but, as you so rightly say, generally the carols and advent songs come through fairly unscathed.
I have noticed a trend to change the tunes of familiar hymns. A notable example being a change from the traditional 'When I survey the Wond'rous Cross' where the initiated sang along and the general populace passed by (because they didn't recognise the song!).
We do need to be careful when we change words or tunes to suit ourselves as doing so puts a barrier up to those who aren't that au fait with church.
Thanks for post - Happy New Year to you both.
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