Hymns – Same words, different tunes

Something different occurred during our Sunday School class time last Sunday. It’s worth noting that the term “different” is not usually associated with anything of Southern Baptist origin, as we tend to like things nice and orderly and predictable. We’re the Texas Aggies of denominations.

But on this Sunday, we had substitute song leaders; they had come to us from the distant land of North Carolina and had brought strange new customs into our midst. One of those new customs involved singing Amazing Grace to the tune of — get this — Peaceful Easy Feeling, by those bastions of religious tradition, the Eagles. All the familiar words of the hymn were used, but we added a chorus, lifted right from the Eagles’ song:

And I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling;
I know He won’t let me down.
‘Cause I’m already standing
On solid ground.

OK…I’m kidding about almost everything up to this point, except the music itself. (And Southern Baptists. And Aggies.) Our church happens to be very open to different styles of music and worship, and our class itself is a model of religious and cultural diversity (for Midland, anyway) which often leads to interesting discussions.

Anyway, as we sang this version (and sang it quite well, I might add), I looked around the room and thought, “we’re a bunch of old hippies!” Indeed, no one in the room had to be prompted to recall the tune.

This wasn’t the first time that we’d “mistreated” this wonderful old hymn. At a previous party, we sang it to the tune of House of the Rising Sun (which always presents an interesting contrast of images, considering the subject matter of the song from which the tune is taken). It actually made for a very touching rendition.

Growing up in a churchy environment, I’ve always heard that many of the original old hymns were set to the popular tunes of the day, and many of those tunes had, shall we say, less-than-holy origins, namely taverns and other Shoppes of Ill Repute. Now, I’ll admit that I’ve always been a little skeptical of these claims; surely the good tavern-goers of the 17th and 18th centuries could come up with melodies a little, um, peppier than what we hear. But perhaps the standards for peppiness were different back then. (Also, I couldn’t find any confirmation of the “tavern origin theory of melody” when I employed my standard focused in-depth research methodology: a review of the first 10 hits in Google.)

Nevertheless, even if the tunes we associate with these hymns didn’t arise from secular origins, the hymn phrasing often lends itself to a new, updated treatment, ala Peaceful Easy Feeling or HOTRS. And, indeed, it would seem that this approach would lend itself to making such music more relevant or accessible to those with no church or religious background, and perhaps make it fresh to those who now sing it by mindless rote.

I suspect this musical “customization” goes on a lot more than I realize. I’d like to hear from others about similar examples of setting hymns to different tunes.

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Categorized as Faith, Music

9 comments

  1. Eric,
    I hate to disappoint you on this, but olde tavern goers were no more “uplifted” in their choice of subject matter than modern tavern goers. For reference, I would point you to the trad folk scene out of England. It’s hard to find a song that doesn’t involve someone cheating on their spouse, placing a curse on someone, getting drunk or some such nonsense. And, it’s a well-established fact that someone’s gonna die by the last stanza.
    Here’s a site that has some lyrics and midis of folk songs of old tymes:
    http://www.contemplator.com/folk.html
    Also, my introduction to church music textbook from seminary (which I can’t locate at the moment) offered some examples of tavern music used for tunes for hymns.

  2. Bryan, I guess I didn’t express myself clearly. I was never under the impression that the words to the hymns were derived from the secular music of the day, just that the tunes from the drinking songs were “borrowed” by hymn-writers to perhaps give their lyrics increased acceptability.
    As you point out, there’s really nothing new under the sun. I’m sure that half of the “she done me wrong” songs in today’s country music genre would fit perfectly in an 18th century English tavern, provided it was set to the right music.

  3. Yes, it’s as you say. Listen to some of the midis on that site I mentioned, and there is a pretty good musicianship on display in the melodies.
    I can’t say that it always makes me comfortable singing a hymn to the tune of “your mamma don’t dance and your daddy don’t rock and roll,” which we do at our church.

  6. I remember singing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of “Peaceful, Easy Feeling” (complete with PEC chorus) as far back as 10 years ago. So it’s not a new “update.”
    In fact, I thought I’d put it long behind me when, lo and behold, my current church did the exact same thing 2 weeks ago.

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