My first ward's priesthood meeting filled the chapel every Sunday. We were blessed with a lot of men with good singing voices. Not one was bashful. When we sang, we sang. When it came time to sing "Put..." (often) the men even sang the parts. I still get chills when the memory plays in my mind. Probably has something to do with me being a lover of men.
A Poor... As a poem I still consider it to be wonderfully inspirational. However, when I put it in the context in which it is used in the morg... to agrandize JS it seems to lose its appeal.
When my kids were little, I was a single mom (probably the only one in the ward) and I hated when the kids had to sing that stupid primary song to the congregation. I can only remember part of the lyrics....
I love daddy he loves me We are a happy Fam-i-ly
I wanted to go to someone in the primary presidency and just slap them! And then say,"hey..it's bad enough my kids have a dad that treats them like shit, doesn't see them, breaks promises to them, etc. but now they have to feel even worse about it and more like outcasts because they don't have a 'happy fam-i-ly'like all the other little mos here.
I swear, my kids are 22 and 24 and I still get pissed off thinking about them having to sing this song up on the stage.
I totally understand PinkPoodle! I was one of the few kids who came from a broken home in my ward, and singing those "happy family" songs used to make me so sad and angry.
The other one that used to kill me was "How Great Thou Art"...not that the message was bad, just that I felt it so hypocritical to sing that song in a room full of people who only cared about themselves.
...and a very new newlywed, I asked the primary president about doing crap like this. Her answer floored me. She said that the other kids who come from "normal" and "strong" homes shouldn't be punished just because some of the kids didn't have moms or dads at home.
As tbm in you youth I loved "Hail to the Prophet". Now I cring at the hubris of it. I like to think it was because I could hear the bagpipes in the backgroud. My friends and I referred to it as the mormon fight song.
on my pennywhistle and my husband covered his ears and said "Ugh. Please. No songs abut Mormon prophets in our house!"
I told him "The Mormons ripped it off all of Scotland, so how about we just take it back and stop letting them 'own' a tune in our minds that they stole from a much more glorious tradition".
Growing up we had a neighbor on the block behind our house who played the bagpipes, usually in the glomin'. I think that is where I learned to love the tune.
Some of the songs had nice words or a nice tune, this one had nothing going for it as far as I'm concerned.
Besides that, my older brother ridiculed me every Sunday when I was about five or six because I had thought the song was about pioneers shoving their covered wagons out of big ruts.
"Oh My Father" teaches that the Mother in Heaven exists and will participate in judgement. As the poem was written as a prayer/psalm, one has to assume that the singer is aware that he is praying to both God the Father and God the Mother, asking to meet them and be with them.
Hmmm... Are the GAs aware that by doing so, we are worshipping God the Mother? Don't you get exed for that?
hymn. It wasn't downright offensive, but considering the supposedly-powerful content, it was SOOO painful to sit through. Towards the end of my LDSness I couldn't even finish singing it. I just find it utterly exhausting.
"I Believe In Christ" is an excruciatingly boring and uninspiring hymn. I think Mormons sing it, because it appeals to their Calvinist suffering ethic.
"Oh How Lovely Was The Morning" sucks along with most of those mentioned previously.
I still keep a hymnal aroung so I can show people how the cover has phalic symbols on it. The large organ pipes even have little notches at the top of thier round heads if you look carefully. Even the name "organ pipe" could be taken to be phalic.
High on a mountain top will always be special to me. It was always hard for me to supress the laughter inside me whenever we got to the part that said a banner is unfurrled to "atract the gaze (I always imagined it read gays) of all the world in latter days".
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2011 03:24PM by luckychucky.
+1 "Oh how lovely was the morning" sucked!!! Not only was it a stupid melody, but the second line "...brightlt beamed the sun above.." was too high for most people to sing, and they squeeked, and yelled it. I can still remember my BIL's face turning red as he strained it out.
"Til We Meet Again" was my favorite. Bet you can't guess why...
Another pennywhistle player! Yay! I have a book of Scottish songs for the whistle and Scotland the Brave even says also called "Praise to the Man". Made my Catholic music teacher very curious.
I always hated the song about "doing good is a pleasure, a joy beyond measure" and it had the line (now changed thankfully) "the world has no use for the drone"! I always kinda took that personally. But now drone and morg do make a lot more sense, but then it just made a kid feel worse about herself.
PAHLEEEEZE - I beg you in the name of all that is holy - DON'T bring up those stupid funeral dirges. They stick in my head for hours like a bad flashback. Have mercy!!
Praise to the Man is the all-time worst. Aughhh - I said it! Aughhh, I said it again.....
I also hated "Sweet Hour of Prayer" because when I was in seminary, not many of the students could play the piano, so one girl would volunteer to play the hymn and that was the only one she knew. I also got tired of "How Firm a Foundation" because I remember singing it A LOT.
There are more, but those are the only ones I can come up with off the top of my head.
I like music and like most of the hymns (as long as they are sung at a fast tempo).
As far as song being stolen, that was a normal practice. I was the organist for the Baptist church for years and they have hymns with the same melodies (many lyrics/hymns are the same).
How Great Thou Art is a favorite of mine. My dad used to sing it at many wards, but that was before it was published in the LDS hymnal. Because it was used by a televangelist many thought it was not right to sing in SM.
I told my kids that a friend and I when around 12 would add "under the covers" to they hymn titles to make it a little more interesting.
We had an Italian family join the church in our ward. She was a chellist, he an operetic tenor. They were asked to perform in sm. The number they chose was a lovely Ave Maria. As soon as the bishop had heard enough to know what it was they were stopped and the bishop gave a lecture on why it was inappropriate.
I always loved "Have I done any good...". A lovely lilting melody with uplifting words. The time signature change on the chorus also gave it a bit extra.
What you need to rehabilitate this song is the version from the Trent Harris movie Plan 10 From Outer Space. Comes with a dance that's part vogue (think Madonna) and part secre... er, sacred ritual: