Corny Choruses

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  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited November 2019
    Priscilla wrote: »
    I wouldn't call it a hymn or chorus, but as part of our Rememberance Sunday service this morning, we had 'I had a dream the other night, the strangest dream of all"..
    And if we are thinking about Christmas music, can I add "O Holy night" to the list of vocal monstrosities?

    Indeed. I first experienced this in an amateur choir where an aging one of our number would warble this out as a solo. Whether she had once had a good voice I know not, but by then she had a vibrato covering about a fifth within which the note resided somewhere and moved from one note to another by sliding through all points in between. One inevitably had a mental picture of a saw and violin bow...

    The old biddies we sang to seemed to like it, but I tended to wish I could take a tip from 'Allo 'Allo and stuff my ears with cheese.
  • Just conferred with Darllenwr - "I had a dream etc " is a Spinners song 😧
  • You certainly can, as far as I'm concerned.
  • Mozart could make Kyrie Eleison last 9 minutes. And then move on to Christe Eleison.

    Aye, but Mozart's music and poetry are gorgeously inseparable. Days of Elijah is as musical as a concrete block, but less useful.

    Musique concrète.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    I believe the original thread was Horrible Hymns and Crappy Choruses.

    That was Old Ship. On this streamlined vessel, there was also wonky worship songs.

    Shi*e, Jesus shi*e has made all of these threads.

  • I love O Holy Night.
  • chrisstileschrisstiles Shipmate
    edited November 2019
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    The bad reputation of certain church movements shouldn't be confused with their worship output. Not all Hillsongs music is "Jesus-is-my boyfriend" and much has quite standard theological content (at least by Pentecostal standards). The same even goes, dare I say it, for Bethel output.

    I'd say that Hillsongs musical output is actually surprisingly good given the source - Bethel less so.

    Don't you find the source rather deters you from wanting to use the material? It does me.

    Personally yes. Nevertheless other people sometimes pick them.
  • Yes, Unde et Memores it is (well, that's the one I think we're referring to, and it's the one we sang at Our Place this morning).

    Would that also be the "undies and memories" song?
  • Eutychus wrote: »
    The bad reputation of certain church movements shouldn't be confused with their worship output. Not all Hillsongs music is "Jesus-is-my boyfriend" and much has quite standard theological content (at least by Pentecostal standards). The same even goes, dare I say it, for Bethel output.

    I'd say that Hillsongs musical output is actually surprisingly good given the source - Bethel less so.

    Some of it is good, others sound like holy Coldplay, and I am not a fan of Coldplay.
  • balaam wrote: »
    Eutychus wrote: »
    The bad reputation of certain church movements shouldn't be confused with their worship output. Not all Hillsongs music is "Jesus-is-my boyfriend" and much has quite standard theological content (at least by Pentecostal standards). The same even goes, dare I say it, for Bethel output.

    I'd say that Hillsongs musical output is actually surprisingly good given the source - Bethel less so.

    Some of it is good, others sound like holy Coldplay, and I am not a fan of Coldplay.

    Just to clarify my somewhat confusing phrasing - I was responding to Eutychus and meant that some Hillsongs output is actually reasonably okay from a *theological* POV. Musically most songs/hymns leave me cold.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    There is a hilarious rendition of "O Holy Night", sung by an expert vocalist who deliberately sang it very badly. In the past the link has been posted here on the ship, but I haven't come across it lately, and I have lost the link itself. If anyone has it, please post it. I know many shippies would enjoy it.
  • Well, not one I enjoy in any shape or form. In a church choir directed by a very competent person form USA, there were grumbles and complaints by just about every member
    It was to be sung at a Christmas concert among other items. He could not understand how every single Aussie did not like it. Schmaltzy, hard to sing, sounded terrible even when sung without mistakes. More. So much better music around.
  • Back on the subject of 'Jesus is my boyfriend' style songs containing borderline lyrics; one of the more horrendous instances of this type must be "This is the Mystery" by Chris Bowater, The chorus of which consisted of repetitions of the line "Let the bride say 'Come!'".

    Worse still this was one of the songs appropriate by the 'March for Jesus' events.
  • Enoch wrote: »
    Here's another one from the 60s that some Shipmates will remember well, but which you probably have not heard for a long time.

    I bet you didn't know cut flowers can sing, though they don't seem to be very good at it and despite the compère, they don't seem to be having a very Merry Christmas.
    If by “from the 60s” you mean “from the 1860s” (if not earlier), then yeah. As others have pointed out, this is a spiritual with deep roots over year. It’s a standard at Christmas at our church.

    But that rendition to which you linked—bless their hearts. If you need to get that one out of your head, try this version, where it’s sung, along with another spiritual, “Jesus, Oh What a Wonderful Child,” a little more traditionally.

  • We all have our preferences and we all exercise choice. What we see on this thread and the accompanying one in purgatory reflects the whole "one man's meat is another man's poison" perspective on choice.

    I am no lover of old choruses but think on this .... Mrs M worked with demented and very sick elderly people in hospital. What calmed a whole ward of 80 somethings? Sunday school songs ... Wide, Wide; Jesus love is very wonderful. It may seem bizarre but it reopened a feeling of being part of something but not for everyone now of course.

    I am equally put off by choirs and/or singing that doesn't allow me to join in because it's performance (choral anthems and stadium con evo worship songs alike). I am not all keen on choirs where many/some/all of the members are there for the music not for their faith. I dislike banal worship group music, drummers in plastic cages and worship leaders who think I can't read so have to give me each line of every song before its sung. In short I pays me money and makes me choice .... just like all of us.
  • Moo wrote: »
    There is a hilarious rendition of "O Holy Night", sung by an expert vocalist who deliberately sang it very badly. In the past the link has been posted here on the ship, but I haven't come across it lately, and I have lost the link itself. If anyone has it, please post it. I know many shippies would enjoy it.

    you mean this one?
    Oh Holy Night
  • Well, I lasted less than 20 seconds.
  • OH, it gets way better (by which I mean, worse)
  • Wet Kipper wrote: »
    Moo wrote: »
    There is a hilarious rendition of "O Holy Night", sung by an expert vocalist who deliberately sang it very badly. In the past the link has been posted here on the ship, but I haven't come across it lately, and I have lost the link itself. If anyone has it, please post it. I know many shippies would enjoy it.

    you mean this one?
    Oh Holy Night

    You utter bastard!
  • jbohnjbohn Shipmate
    KarlLB wrote: »
    Wet Kipper wrote: »
    you mean this one?
    Oh Holy Night

    You utter bastard!

    Holy fuck. My ears are bleeding. It's like Joe from the pub trying his hand at Johnny Mathis while three sheets to the wind and stuck in the bathroom.
  • Bless Steve Maudlin. He meant well, and has given us so much Christmas fun! There are some fabulous lip-sync versions to this of guys in Christmas jumpers, well worth the watch.

    From age 3 onwards I went to a kind of independent evangelical Sunday School where all those choruses were sung. Loved them to bits. Eg,

    'Do you want a pilot - signal then to Jesus;
    Do you want a pilot - then let him come aboard;
    For he will safely guide - across the ocean wide;
    until at last you reach the heavenly harbour.'

    and

    'We're going to a mansion, on the Happy Day Express;
    the letters on the engine are J-E-S-U-S;
    the guard calls out 'For Heaven' -
    We gladly answer 'yes';
    we're going to a mansion, on the Happy Day Express.'

    The last one we always sang waiting on the platform, for the train to pick us up for our yearly Excursion to Portrush.

    And the action songs were a great favourite. And probably my favourite was:
    'Wide, wide as the ocean : high as the heaven above,
    Deep, deep as the deepest sea - is my Saviour's love;
    I, though so unworthy, still am a child of his care;
    for his word teaches me that his love reaches me everywhere.'

    (Just in case anyone thinks I only related to transport-referencing songs.)

    Of course, we were very little! And it all made a nice contrast to the stuffiness of the church Sunday School where we only ever sung 'Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light.....' Year after year after year.... That's why I ended up joining the church choir, to get out of the church Sunday School.

  • What @Anselmina said - I know most of those (except for the Happy Day Express one), and I even quite like 'Jesus bids us shine'.

    I think it helped that my Sunday School teacher back in the Days of Yore (late 1950s) was quite an accomplished pianist, and swung these songs along at a cracking pace!

    One of our organists, who is a few years younger than me, and also comes from an evo background, sometimes plays us out, after Sunday Mass, with one or other of this type of song/chorus.

    She is greatly diverted when one or two of the congregation (along with Father NewPriest!) start warbling the words, as the altar party makes its way to the Shrine Of Our Lady Of Walsingham* for the 'vestry' prayer... :wink:

    *It's near the church door, so, if Father is there when he dismisses the altar party, he's close at hand to greet people as they try to escape...
  • I dislike banal worship group music, drummers in plastic cages .....

    I dunno, most of the drummers I know belong in cages, plastic or otherwise. (I speak as the mother of one) :naughty:
  • WandererWanderer Shipmate Posts: 47
    [quote="Dafyd;
    Anselmina wrote: »


    And the action songs were a great favourite. And probably my favourite was:
    'Wide, wide as the ocean : high as the heaven above,
    Deep, deep as the deepest sea - is my Saviour's love;
    I, though so unworthy, still am a child of his care;
    for his word teaches me that his love reaches me everywhere.'




    I like that one too! I grew up in a coastal town that the United Beach Mission would visit every summer and run story and song times. For me context is very important when it comes to action songs (see thread in Ecclesiantics) so singing "wide, wide as the ocean" while sitting on a beach seemed appropriate.
  • For my sins (?) I twice participated in United Beach Missions. They still very much exist.
  • There are choruses I cannot hear without hearing the crash of waves in the background.
  • WandererWanderer Shipmate Posts: 47
    For my sins (?) I twice participated in United Beach Missions. They still very much exist.

    No sins there BT! They were fun and it was an education to me that not only the little old ladies who ran our church's Sunday school, but men who were young enough to run games on the beach, might talk about Jesus!
    I recently looked them up on the interwebs so I know that they are still going but I understand that they don't visit My Birthplace any more.
  • Baptist TrainfanBaptist Trainfan Shipmate
    edited November 2019
    You obviously went to places with greater swell than I did. In Folkestone and Shanklin the waves merely lapped (and in Folkestone there was the added attraction of ferries and boat-trains coming and going, not to mention regular sightings of the"Night Ferry" crossing Foord Road Viaduct as we went for breakfast each morning, and one memorable view of the "Golden Arrow". You will see that my mind was not entirely occupied with spiritual things).
  • Under those circumstances, Happy Day Express might well have been appropriate, @Baptist Trainfan !

    (My Old Dad - RIPARIG - took me to our nearby station to witness the passing of the very last steam-hauled down 'Golden Arrow'. He even bought me a copy of the local press photo of the train, bless him).

    Isn't there a song 'The Gospel Train's a-comin, I hear it close at hand' , or something along those lines (sic) ?
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited November 2019
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A

    Not particularly corny, though, meseems...
    :wink:
  • It does seem to take a long time before actually leaving the station, though ...

    The "Golden Arrow" I saw was electrically-hauled, and in the final year of operation.
  • Sorry about that - I should have advised omitting the looooooong intro!

    (The 'Golden Arrow' was never the same after being electrificated...).
    :cry:
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A
    :wink:

    This is another spiritual that has been altered almost past recognition. I have a recording of Marian Andersen singing it. Black spirituals have a certain style which has been completely lost in these modern versions.

  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    RooK wrote: »

    There was the usual sort of discussion with everyone boasting about the make of car driven. Someone asked Justice Meagher, then of the NSW Court of Appeal: Roddy, what sort of car do you have? Answer: A brown one.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A
    That sort of thing is always a reminder to those of us who habitually sing in other languages that we're apt to make the natives restless...


  • Moo wrote: »
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A
    :wink:

    This is another spiritual that has been altered almost past recognition. I have a recording of Marian Andersen singing it. Black spirituals have a certain style which has been completely lost in these modern versions.

    A corrupted spiritual that we used to sing, which definitely qualified as a Corny Chorus in its modernised form, is

    Oh you'll never get to heaven
    In a washing machine
    Cos a washing machine
    Don't wash that clean
    (Repeat and add the refrain I ain't gonna grieve my Lord no more x7)

    Subsequent verses veered into the satirical (... in a Skoda car Cos a Skoda car won't get that far) to the surreal (... in a baked-bean tin Cos a baked-bean tin has got baked beans in)
  • bigjon wrote: »
    Moo wrote: »
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A
    :wink:

    This is another spiritual that has been altered almost past recognition. I have a recording of Marian Andersen singing it. Black spirituals have a certain style which has been completely lost in these modern versions.

    A corrupted spiritual that we used to sing, which definitely qualified as a Corny Chorus in its modernised form, is

    Oh you'll never get to heaven
    In a washing machine
    Cos a washing machine
    Don't wash that clean
    (Repeat and add the refrain I ain't gonna grieve my Lord no more x7)

    Subsequent verses veered into the satirical (... in a Skoda car Cos a Skoda car won't get that far) to the surreal (... in a baked-bean tin Cos a baked-bean tin has got baked beans in)

    Favourite in scouts around the early 80s
  • And on the coach on any school excursion in the 80s.
  • In the scouts it goes back at least as far as the 60s.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    bigjon wrote: »
    Moo wrote: »
    Yes, there is - and here it is being sung (in English) by a German choir!
    https://youtube.com/watch?v=igoosH8Kl7A
    :wink:

    This is another spiritual that has been altered almost past recognition. I have a recording of Marian Andersen singing it. Black spirituals have a certain style which has been completely lost in these modern versions.

    A corrupted spiritual that we used to sing, which definitely qualified as a Corny Chorus in its modernised form, is

    Oh you'll never get to heaven
    In a washing machine
    Cos a washing machine
    Don't wash that clean
    (Repeat and add the refrain I ain't gonna grieve my Lord no more x7)

    Subsequent verses veered into the satirical (... in a Skoda car Cos a Skoda car won't get that far) to the surreal (... in a baked-bean tin Cos a baked-bean tin has got baked beans in)

    Favourite in scouts around the early 80s

    And stuck around well into the 90s. Though it was Akela's car (I was in cubs).
  • DardaDarda Shipmate
    And stuck around well into the 90s. Though it was Akela's car (I was in cubs).

    From my scouting days in the 60s I recall a couple of verses:

    "With a fat girl guide - 'cos the pearly gates ain't made that wide" (sung by scout's)

    "On a boy scout's knee - 'cos a boy scout's knee's too wobbly" (reply by guides)
  • Dear me. Shame upon you all.

    ITTWACW...
  • TonyKTonyK Shipmate, Host Emeritus Posts: 43
    In the scouts it goes back at least as far as the 60s.

    Certainly to the mid 1950s - to my personal knowledge. It had endless verses....

    Yours Aye... TonyK
  • ...in a Playtex bra...cos a Playtex bra...won't stretch that far... :smile:

    It got much worse in our scouts - especially 'In the Quartermaster's stores' where two leaders were immortalised by

    'There was Keith,Keith, putting on a sheath...' and worse (if that's possible) 'Robin, Robin, try'na get 'is nobbin'... :smiley:
  • Oh you'll never get to heaven is still around in Guides, but not sung as much as it used to be.
  • My Guide song book has 37 verses to You Can't Go to Heaven. A couple of them are theologically ok:
    ...with silver and gold, cause nothing up there is bought or sold
    ...in powder and paint, cause the Lord don't like you as you ain't.

    Most, of course are just scurrilous.

    I am pleased to report that the scurrilous Guide song was still alive and going strong when my daughter was a Guide.
  • la vie en rougela vie en rouge Circus Host, 8th Day Host
    Definitely a campfire song, IME. I feel a Circus thread is in order.
  • Oh, do feel free to decamp there. They love that kind of thing...
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Yes, please feel free!
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