We had:
God is our refuge and our strength (STROUDWATER, which I recorded sung in 4 part harmony with myself)
Immortal, invisible (ST DENIO)
There's a wideness in God's mercy (CROSS OF JESUS)
There is a Redeemer
Jesus calls us o'er the tumult (ST ANDREW)
Hope of the world, thou Christ of great compassion
God himself is with us
Completed, Lord, the Holy Mysteries
O Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end
Praise him forever - Tomlin et al
I cast my mind to Calvary - Hillsong
From heaven to earth (He lives reigning in power) - Tomlin et al
Light pierced through the dark (Risen king) - Olly Knight
How great the chasm (living hope) - Wickham/Johnson
I can't now remember what we sang (apart from the Dudman setting), but at least Madame and I had the decency to turn our microphone off for any singing.
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. (Now we are with the Methodists there are some small thing to notice, like that initial O which you wouldn’t find in CH4)
Make me a channel of your peace.
Something I had never sung before, but liked, by Fred Pratt Green, but I don’t remember the first line.
To God be the glory
Our new Methodist friends can’t get over the wonder of having Mr Cats play their organ for them, which is nice. He likes it too, having a real pipe organ to play on/with.
That sounds lovely - as a (legacy) guitarist who is being asked on occasions to step in for our organist as she gets older, I can appreciate how positively a Methodist congregation would view a move in the opposite direction!
I suppose F. Pratt Green kind of comes with the territory - there's lots worse in the new(-ish) red hymn book. You inspired me to look him up - 'Christ is the worlds light' (Christe Sanctorum) and 'The church of God in every age' (Herongate) I really like, and we sing them often. This is a nice quote from the man himself, from his wiki page:
His obituary in The Times of 24 October 2000 quoted him as saying of hymn singing, "It’s such a dangerous activity … you get this glow which you can mistake for religious experience".
It was “The Church of God in every age” -thanks for the prompt to my memory
These Methodists use a blue book, interspersed with Mission
Praise, depending on who is leading the services, as the various ministers and preachers seem to revolve around the circuit merrily. Of course there are very few Methodists in Scotland, but this wee circuit (of four congregations, post Covid, as some smaller congregations have not been re-started) seems to have sprung up in the days when the herring fleet drifted down the coast to Bits of England. There was some marrying done (!) and in this bit of the north coast, though nowhere else on the Scottish East Coast, some Methodism was planted.
O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. (Now we are with the Methodists there are some small thing to notice, like that initial O which you wouldn’t find in CH4)
Make me a channel of your peace.
Something I had never sung before, but liked, by Fred Pratt Green, but I don’t remember the first line.
To God be the glory
Our new Methodist friends can’t get over the wonder of having Mr Cats play their organ for them, which is nice. He likes it too, having a real pipe organ to play on/with.
I suppose F. Pratt Green kind of comes with the territory - there's lots worse in the new(-ish) red hymn book. You inspired me to look him up - 'Christ is the worlds light' (Christe Sanctorum) and 'The church of God in every age' (Herongate) I really like, and we sing them often. This is a nice quote from the man himself, from his wiki page:
His obituary in The Times of 24 October 2000 quoted him as saying of hymn singing, "It’s such a dangerous activity … you get this glow which you can mistake for religious experience".
The Church of Christ in Every Age is sung to WAREHAM in my tribe. It is a good hymn.
I'm glad you like the quote Nick. Cathscats, the blue book (from early 80s - Hymns and Psalms) is much better in my view than the more recent red one (Singing the Faith). Though there will be quite a lot in both that most congregations won't get around to. I bought one of these off ebay a while back - there's loads of background on each hymn (though, I guess, hymnary.org will tell you most of this stuff, these days).
I'm glad you have a small circuit - 4 churches, one minister who is his/her own super? Watch out if anyone finds out you have preaching experience...
I ran the service the other week and enjoyed picking these:
Tell out my soul - although we are a Presbyterian church, I deliberately modelled the start of the service on an Anglican service, so used this as a setting of the Magnificat Love the Lord your God - chose this because it linked to the sermon - we tried to sing it as a round with 100 masked congregants, not a great success but we got through it As the deer pants for the water - a modern setting of Psalm 42 Guide me O Thou Great Redeemer - this tied back to the childrens' talk where I showed the children the first two lines in Welsh and then in English and we talked about whether we understand what we are singing
Tell out my soul - although we are a Presbyterian church, I deliberately modelled the start of the service on an Anglican service, so used this as a setting of the Magnificat
Interesting that I saw your mention of this hymn first thing this morning (my time). Thanks to a conversation with a friend last night, I have discovered “Voices United: A Congregational Song Podcast,” which is put out by The Center for Congregatioval Song (which is in turn is an arm of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada). This morning, I started listening to the podcast from the beginning. Each episode is an interview with a hymn writer or other musician connected to congregational singing, and the first interview was with Timothy Dudley-Smith.
Did he say which tune he preferred to "Tell out"? - "Woodlands" which seems to have become universal, or the original "Youth Praise" tune (also set to "Go forth and tell").
Did he say which tune he preferred to "Tell out"? - "Woodlands" which seems to have become universal, or the original "Youth Praise" tune (also set to "Go forth and tell").
Actually, he did tell a story on that. He noted that he wasn’t present the first time it was sung, but he later heard a recording. He laughed that he was rather glad not to have been present because the tune used was “unsingable.” He then recounted mentioning this once to a group to which he was speaking, and someone in the back of the room raised his hand and said, somewhat timidly, “I wrote that tune.” Dudley-Smith said he had to quickly clarify that he meant “unsingable” without some teaching and rehearsal as it was unfamiliar.
He didn’t say what tune that was, though perhaps it was YOUTH PRAISE. He did go on to say that the text was soon used with and became associated WOODLANDS, and that he thinks that it’s a good match.
“Tell Out, My Soul” fits the metre 10.10.10.10, and it was originally published in 1965 in The Anglican Hymn Book, set to the tune TIDINGS by William Llewellyn. In 1966, the hymn was included in the Evangelical Anglican hymnal Youth Praise, set to a tune by Michael Baughen, GO FORTH. The text was later paired with the existing hymn tune WOODLANDS, which had been composed by Walter Greatorex in 1916 for Henry Montagu Butler's 1881 hymn "Lift Up Your Hearts!". "Tell Out, My Soul" is now most popularly sung to Greatorex's melody.
So perhaps the unsingable tune he was talking about in the interview was TIDINGS; I can’t find any info on that tune. He did mention The Anglican Hymn Book, I think.
Music and singing in church yesterday! I can't remember how many months it had been, but we were able yesterday at a funeral to have 5 from the choir sing for us from in the gallery, with an organist as well. No congregational singing for a few more weeks.
So perhaps the unsingable tune he was talking about in the interview was TIDINGS; I can’t find any info on that tune. He did mention The Anglican Hymn Book, I think.
Never heard of "Tidings" - here's a tune of that name but it blatantly doesn't fit! https://tinyurl.com/2aky8cc6
I'm sorry, @MaryLouise ; I so seldom post to boards such as this these days that I've got out of the habit of leaving PDF warnings when posting links. A lesson for me, I think.
Son was on the sound desk again so we dropped him off early and then went for a Thai curry at the pub on the corner before church.
We sang:
Come let us worship the king of kings - Fellingham
In the darkness we were waiting (king of kings) - Bullock
Worthy of every song - Barrett
Build your kingdom here - Rend Collective
Lost are saved - Grant
After an overnight stop in Leeds, travelling down from Scotland, I ventured into a church close by my hotel. It was a little higher up the candle than my normal worship.
Lord of beauty, thine the splendour - REGENT SQUARE
Through all the changing scenes of life - WILTSHIRE
O worship the King all glorious above - HANOVER
Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us - LIVING LORD
He who would valiant be - MONKS GATE
We were confined to barracks when Mrs Feet developed a cough and as no-one else in the congregation feels confident connecting a laptop we moved back to online-only for the day.
Nonetheless we had:
Holy holy holy Lord God almighty
Christ is our light
O God of Bethel
Holy Spirit hear us
In Christ there is no east or west
Son was on the sound desk again so we dropped him off early and then went for a Thai curry at the pub on the corner before church.
We sang:
Come let us worship the king of kings - Fellingham
In the darkness we were waiting (king of kings) - Bullock
Worthy of every song - Barrett
Build your kingdom here - Rend Collective
Lost are saved - Grant
We've never done any of those at our place. I think Worthy of every song is actually "Build my life" which I've heard, but have never sung at our church. This evening we had a Chris-Tomlin-heavy set:
Give thanks to the Lord (Forever) - Chris Tomlin
Water you turned into wine (Our God) - Tomlin et al.
God I look to you (Ian McIntosh, Jenn Johnson)
Love ran red (Tomlin et al.)
The Servant King (Kendrick)
I stand amazed (How marvellous) - (Charles Hutchinson Gabriel)
We did 2 Tomlin’s last week but none of those, though we sing the first two you list regularly. I think I may have sung the third Tomlin once before.
I don’t think I know ‘God I look to you’.
Servant King
Take our bread
Unless a grain of wheat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZz35vPa3kA
Majesty.
And we started singing the Holy, holy etc again - Chris Walker's Celtic Mass. Only the Goria is still spoken.
We had Harvest Thanksgiving and sang
Come ye thankful people come,
Hear us, O Lord, from heaven Thy dwelling place,
Yes God is good on earth and sky,
Here is love vast as the ocean,
God whose farm is all creation.
No, we didn’t have We plough the fields and scatter, as someone of course pointed out to the fairly new-to-here (and to this country, being Australian) minister. But we did also listen to the song of the fishgutters, as we remembered the women’s part in the harvest of the sea.
Be still for the presence
Amazing grace (gospel was blind Bartimaeus.)
Oh the Love of my Lord (Estelle White)
Guide me O Thou Great, which several members of the congregation sang lustily in Welsh.
Still looking at Job (we're a week or two 'behind'!)
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”.
“My God is so big”.
“Don’t be afraid” (Wild Goose).
“God moves in a mysterious way”.
“Can we by searching find out God?”
“Jesus, lover of my soul”.
The king of love
Jesus loves me (GAELIC LULLABY)
Love divine (BLAENWERN)
The Lord's my shepherd (CRIMOND, because while I was tempted to inflict BROTHER JAMES'S AIR on the congregation there's probably a 90% chance I'm the only one who knows it).
At our mid morning service:
I am a City on a Hill Nick & Becky Drake
Mighty to Save Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan
You alone could Rescue Matt Redman
Amazing Love Chris Tomlin
There is a Redeemer Melody Green
The Lord's my shepherd (CRIMOND, because while I was tempted to inflict BROTHER JAMES'S AIR on the congregation there's probably a 90% chance I'm the only one who knows it).
I love Orpington. Any of my previous congregations know it!
In the Methodists we had a brave introduction to the service as the minister played a recording of Threnody for Hiroshima - I didn’t catch the composer. Very atmospheric and discordant.
Then we sang
I will sing the wondrous story
“The tree of life” an original work by said minister who accompanied it on his violin. Quite good tune, Mr Cats said that Steeleye Span would do it well. Slightly odd theology.
We returned to convention with
God is love, his the care
Praise to the Lord the Almighty.
Sermon series on the Creed continued, this week on the ascension. Songs were:
We bow our hearts (receive our adoration) - Brenton Brown
I cast my mind to Calvary (oh praise the name) - Hastings et al
Who has held the oceans (behold our God) - Baird and Altrogge
The splendour of the king (how great is our God) - Tomlin et al
King of kings, majesty - Cooper
Our singing is still very much constrained due to Covid. However, we were able to have hymns including during communion rather than a choir anthem.
Entrance hymn: Immortal, invisible (St Denio)
Gradual : Break thou the bread of life (Bread of life)
Offertory : When in our music God is glorified (Engelberg)
Communion : Jesu, thou joy of loving hearts (Wareham)
Recessional : Thanks to God whose word was spoken (Regent Square)
We are putting forward plans to have a BCP Choral Evensong on Advent Sunday. Here's hoping!
We celebrated Bible Sunday yesterday.
Word of life! Such transformation (Rev Ally Barratt) to Regent Square
Gloria - from the Mass of St Thomas ( David Thorne)
Thou whose almighty word - to Moscow
Break thou the bread of life - to Lathbury during Communion
We have a gospel to proclaim -to Fulda
Break thou the bread took me back to my childhood days and the Brethren place I attended, where this hymn was frequently sung before the sermon, and a right dirge it was. Yesterday it was sung slowly and thoughtfully and I realised what lovely harmonies it had.
The Lord's my shepherd (...I was tempted to inflict BROTHER JAMES'S AIR on the congregation...).
Thanks for letting on the name of that tune - not that I'll remember the name knowing me, but it's a favourite of mine and I never knew what it was called.
Speak O Lord (Townend, Getty)
Breathe (Marie Bennett)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet (Grant, Smith)
Ancient Words (DiShazo)
Living Hope (Wickham, Johnson)
Offering (Baloche)
24 October:
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (Lauda anima)
O for a thousand tongues to sing (Azmon)
God of mercy, God of grace (Lucerna Laudoniae)
Christ in the world's true Light (St Joan)
Oh ... last Sunday I was at a different parish in my pad ... beautiful, historic church ... and the music ...
oh dear ...
The organist, one of God's gentlemen, plays an electric organ of the worst kind, always with that setting that sounds like a movie sound track from the 1940s, stretch screech squawk, and by which the definition of any note (duration thereof, but also whatever tthe EGBDF stuff is called) is rendered utterly indistinct.
Somehow he managed to fit seven awful hymns inderterminately played into the liturgy - bizarrely a pre-offertory and post-offertory inter alia. Amongst them were, allegedly -
Michael Forster's "Love is the Only Law"
Nick Fawcett's "Warm as the Sun"
Someone's "There's a Seed in a Flow'r" (for Frith's sake, cut the bloody apostrophising out)
or was it Michael Foster's "There's a Rainbow in the Sky"?
Oh dear goddess I think it was both
and the whole friggin' "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" thing with verses added which I never before knew existed and which seemed to have an unrelated tune that could have been a Nirvana song or a Krzysztof Penderecki brainfart but at the end of which I was really keen to find a very high bridge ...
I was crying out to sing "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie ..." preferably after a tankard of undiluted Islay Malt inside me ... or a rugby drinking song ...
To make matters ... gulp ... worse ... the congregation (about twelve) was 90% women, all who had perhaps at some time been trained singeres but whose training had ended just after they learned to sing quasi-coloratura, aka wobbling the f*$^# all over the place, which they did, loudly, all in different timing (if they'd been a rowing crew they would have sunk in a cloud of crab-spray*) and different variations on the EGBDF thingy
The good thing was
a) kuruman prought, well as ever, and
b) I now have my time in purgatory reduced by about 7,392 milennia
Oh ... last Sunday I was at a different parish in my pad ... beautiful, historic church ... and the music ...
oh dear ...
The organist, one of God's gentlemen, plays an electric organ of the worst kind, always with that setting that sounds like a movie sound track from the 1940s, stretch screech squawk, and by which the definition of any note (duration thereof, but also whatever tthe EGBDF stuff is called) is rendered utterly indistinct.
Somehow he managed to fit seven awful hymns inderterminately played into the liturgy - bizarrely a pre-offertory and post-offertory inter alia. Amongst them were, allegedly -
Michael Forster's "Love is the Only Law"
Nick Fawcett's "Warm as the Sun"
Someone's "There's a Seed in a Flow'r" (for Frith's sake, cut the bloody apostrophising out)
or was it Michael Foster's "There's a Rainbow in the Sky"?
Oh dear goddess I think it was both
and the whole friggin' "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" thing with verses added which I never before knew existed and which seemed to have an unrelated tune that could have been a Nirvana song or a Krzysztof Penderecki brainfart but at the end of which I was really keen to find a very high bridge ...
I was crying out to sing "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie ..." preferably after a tankard of undiluted Islay Malt inside me ... or a rugby drinking song ...
To make matters ... gulp ... worse ... the congregation (about twelve) was 90% women, all who had perhaps at some time been trained singeres but whose training had ended just after they learned to sing quasi-coloratura, aka wobbling the f*$^# all over the place, which they did, loudly, all in different timing (if they'd been a rowing crew they would have sunk in a cloud of crab-spray*) and different variations on the EGBDF thingy
The good thing was
a) kuruman prought, well as ever, and
b) I now have my time in purgatory reduced by about 7,392 milennia
*rowers will recognize the terminology
Sometimes the 8.00am said service is the one to head to.
Comments
God is our refuge and our strength (STROUDWATER, which I recorded sung in 4 part harmony with myself)
Immortal, invisible (ST DENIO)
There's a wideness in God's mercy (CROSS OF JESUS)
There is a Redeemer
Jesus calls us o'er the tumult (ST ANDREW)
“Jesu, Jesu, fill us with your love”. (Chereponi)
“Made in God’s image”. (Theodora)
“Inspired by love and anger”. (Salley Garden)
“The light of the morning is breaking”. (Crugybar)
How Lovely, Lord (Ps 84)/MERLE’S TUNE
Seek Ye First/LAFFERTY
I Love the Lord, Who Heard My Cry
Come, O Spirit, Dwell Aming Us/EBENEZER
God himself is with us
Completed, Lord, the Holy Mysteries
O Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end
(All from The Hymnal 1982 - Episcopal Church USA)
Tesponsorial psalm
Alleluia
Amazing grace
Come to the waters
Love Divine (Blind Worm.)
I cast my mind to Calvary - Hillsong
From heaven to earth (He lives reigning in power) - Tomlin et al
Light pierced through the dark (Risen king) - Olly Knight
How great the chasm (living hope) - Wickham/Johnson
That sounds lovely - as a (legacy) guitarist who is being asked on occasions to step in for our organist as she gets older, I can appreciate how positively a Methodist congregation would view a move in the opposite direction!
I suppose F. Pratt Green kind of comes with the territory - there's lots worse in the new(-ish) red hymn book. You inspired me to look him up - 'Christ is the worlds light' (Christe Sanctorum) and 'The church of God in every age' (Herongate) I really like, and we sing them often. This is a nice quote from the man himself, from his wiki page:
These Methodists use a blue book, interspersed with Mission
Praise, depending on who is leading the services, as the various ministers and preachers seem to revolve around the circuit merrily. Of course there are very few Methodists in Scotland, but this wee circuit (of four congregations, post Covid, as some smaller congregations have not been re-started) seems to have sprung up in the days when the herring fleet drifted down the coast to Bits of England. There was some marrying done (!) and in this bit of the north coast, though nowhere else on the Scottish East Coast, some Methodism was planted.
And that’s a great quote.
I'm glad you have a small circuit - 4 churches, one minister who is his/her own super? Watch out if anyone finds out you have preaching experience...
Tell out my soul - although we are a Presbyterian church, I deliberately modelled the start of the service on an Anglican service, so used this as a setting of the Magnificat
Love the Lord your God - chose this because it linked to the sermon - we tried to sing it as a round with 100 masked congregants, not a great success but we got through it
As the deer pants for the water - a modern setting of Psalm 42
Guide me O Thou Great Redeemer - this tied back to the childrens' talk where I showed the children the first two lines in Welsh and then in English and we talked about whether we understand what we are singing
He didn’t say what tune that was, though perhaps it was YOUTH PRAISE. He did go on to say that the text was soon used with and became associated WOODLANDS, and that he thinks that it’s a good match.
For what it’s worth, the Wikipedia article on “Tell Out, My Soul” says: So perhaps the unsingable tune he was talking about in the interview was TIDINGS; I can’t find any info on that tune. He did mention The Anglican Hymn Book, I think.
We sang:
Come let us worship the king of kings - Fellingham
In the darkness we were waiting (king of kings) - Bullock
Worthy of every song - Barrett
Build your kingdom here - Rend Collective
Lost are saved - Grant
Lord of beauty, thine the splendour - REGENT SQUARE
Through all the changing scenes of life - WILTSHIRE
O worship the King all glorious above - HANOVER
Lord Jesus Christ, you have come to us - LIVING LORD
He who would valiant be - MONKS GATE
Nonetheless we had:
Holy holy holy Lord God almighty
Christ is our light
O God of Bethel
Holy Spirit hear us
In Christ there is no east or west
We've never done any of those at our place. I think Worthy of every song is actually "Build my life" which I've heard, but have never sung at our church. This evening we had a Chris-Tomlin-heavy set:
Give thanks to the Lord (Forever) - Chris Tomlin
Water you turned into wine (Our God) - Tomlin et al.
God I look to you (Ian McIntosh, Jenn Johnson)
Love ran red (Tomlin et al.)
The Servant King (Kendrick)
I stand amazed (How marvellous) - (Charles Hutchinson Gabriel)
I don’t think I know ‘God I look to you’.
Take our bread
Unless a grain of wheat - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZz35vPa3kA
Majesty.
And we started singing the Holy, holy etc again - Chris Walker's Celtic Mass. Only the Goria is still spoken.
Come ye thankful people come,
Hear us, O Lord, from heaven Thy dwelling place,
Yes God is good on earth and sky,
Here is love vast as the ocean,
God whose farm is all creation.
No, we didn’t have We plough the fields and scatter, as someone of course pointed out to the fairly new-to-here (and to this country, being Australian) minister. But we did also listen to the song of the fishgutters, as we remembered the women’s part in the harvest of the sea.
Amazing grace (gospel was blind Bartimaeus.)
Oh the Love of my Lord (Estelle White)
Guide me O Thou Great, which several members of the congregation sang lustily in Welsh.
“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty”.
“My God is so big”.
“Don’t be afraid” (Wild Goose).
“God moves in a mysterious way”.
“Can we by searching find out God?”
“Jesus, lover of my soul”.
Jesus loves me (GAELIC LULLABY)
Love divine (BLAENWERN)
The Lord's my shepherd (CRIMOND, because while I was tempted to inflict BROTHER JAMES'S AIR on the congregation there's probably a 90% chance I'm the only one who knows it).
I am a City on a Hill Nick & Becky Drake
Mighty to Save Ben Fielding and Reuben Morgan
You alone could Rescue Matt Redman
Amazing Love Chris Tomlin
There is a Redeemer Melody Green
In the Methodists we had a brave introduction to the service as the minister played a recording of Threnody for Hiroshima - I didn’t catch the composer. Very atmospheric and discordant.
Then we sang
I will sing the wondrous story
“The tree of life” an original work by said minister who accompanied it on his violin. Quite good tune, Mr Cats said that Steeleye Span would do it well. Slightly odd theology.
We returned to convention with
God is love, his the care
Praise to the Lord the Almighty.
We bow our hearts (receive our adoration) - Brenton Brown
I cast my mind to Calvary (oh praise the name) - Hastings et al
Who has held the oceans (behold our God) - Baird and Altrogge
The splendour of the king (how great is our God) - Tomlin et al
King of kings, majesty - Cooper
I'll have to listen to it.
Entrance hymn: Immortal, invisible (St Denio)
Gradual : Break thou the bread of life (Bread of life)
Offertory : When in our music God is glorified (Engelberg)
Communion : Jesu, thou joy of loving hearts (Wareham)
Recessional : Thanks to God whose word was spoken (Regent Square)
We are putting forward plans to have a BCP Choral Evensong on Advent Sunday. Here's hoping!
Word of life! Such transformation (Rev Ally Barratt) to Regent Square
Gloria - from the Mass of St Thomas ( David Thorne)
Thou whose almighty word - to Moscow
Break thou the bread of life - to Lathbury during Communion
We have a gospel to proclaim -to Fulda
Break thou the bread took me back to my childhood days and the Brethren place I attended, where this hymn was frequently sung before the sermon, and a right dirge it was. Yesterday it was sung slowly and thoughtfully and I realised what lovely harmonies it had.
Thanks for letting on the name of that tune - not that I'll remember the name knowing me, but it's a favourite of mine and I never knew what it was called.
Speak O Lord (Townend, Getty)
Breathe (Marie Bennett)
Thy word is a lamp unto my feet (Grant, Smith)
Ancient Words (DiShazo)
Living Hope (Wickham, Johnson)
Offering (Baloche)
Praise, my soul, the King of heaven (Lauda anima)
O for a thousand tongues to sing (Azmon)
God of mercy, God of grace (Lucerna Laudoniae)
Christ in the world's true Light (St Joan)
Choral
Setting: Ley Nine-fold Kyrie; Stanford in B-flat
Mundy, Adhaesit pavimento
Ascension, Chicago
oh dear ...
The organist, one of God's gentlemen, plays an electric organ of the worst kind, always with that setting that sounds like a movie sound track from the 1940s, stretch screech squawk, and by which the definition of any note (duration thereof, but also whatever tthe EGBDF stuff is called) is rendered utterly indistinct.
Somehow he managed to fit seven awful hymns inderterminately played into the liturgy - bizarrely a pre-offertory and post-offertory inter alia. Amongst them were, allegedly -
Michael Forster's "Love is the Only Law"
Nick Fawcett's "Warm as the Sun"
Someone's "There's a Seed in a Flow'r" (for Frith's sake, cut the bloody apostrophising out)
or was it Michael Foster's "There's a Rainbow in the Sky"?
Oh dear goddess I think it was both
and the whole friggin' "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" thing with verses added which I never before knew existed and which seemed to have an unrelated tune that could have been a Nirvana song or a Krzysztof Penderecki brainfart but at the end of which I was really keen to find a very high bridge ...
I was crying out to sing "Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie ..." preferably after a tankard of undiluted Islay Malt inside me ... or a rugby drinking song ...
To make matters ... gulp ... worse ... the congregation (about twelve) was 90% women, all who had perhaps at some time been trained singeres but whose training had ended just after they learned to sing quasi-coloratura, aka wobbling the f*$^# all over the place, which they did, loudly, all in different timing (if they'd been a rowing crew they would have sunk in a cloud of crab-spray*) and different variations on the EGBDF thingy
The good thing was
a) kuruman prought, well as ever, and
b) I now have my time in purgatory reduced by about 7,392 milennia
*rowers will recognize the terminology
Sometimes the 8.00am said service is the one to head to.