Corny Choruses

12346»

Comments

  • Enoch wrote: »
    I think I can beat that for bad taste and incongruity. I attended a secular funeral where as the curtains drew round the coffin, Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire was played!

    Also known as the vindaloo song...
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I think I can beat that for bad taste and incongruity. I attended a secular funeral where as the curtains drew round the coffin, Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire was played!

    Also known as the vindaloo song...

    And it burns burns burns...
  • I played for the funeral of a well known garbage truck company owner. As the coffin disappeared the family insisted that we sang 'My old man's a dustman.' Unfortunately most of the congregation dissolved into fits of giggles.
  • Well, no lead balloons. I didn't get a full idea of the congregation's singing as the person behind me knew all three hymns well and had a loud voice. The PA system merged with everyone else indistinguishably.

    I had missed, when proof reading, that the line in the battle hymn which I had carefully picked in the music to read "As He died to make men holy, let us live to make men free" had returned to Ward Howe's "die to make men free", which was disappointing.

    The line in the verse we didn't use, "As ye deal with my contemners, so with you My grace shall deal" I did interpret, with later thought, the way Bro James does, but in the context of dealing with the whole thing, my first impression was that I was facing a warlike group who would not withhold the sword when dealing with God's enemies. (Possibly watching "Good Omens" with its angels champing at the bit for war (or do I mean War?) had an influence as well.) And then God would get them for it. Which didn't make sense.

    I have recently read an interpretation of the whole thing which gradually had me feeling there was something very odd about it. Starting with criticising Ward Howe as a Unitarian, and therefore a dubious source of hymns. Then it slowly dawned that the review was criticising the North as ungodly, while the South had Bible readings and prayers every night in their camps. The whole article was elevating the Confederacy to a noble cause, and the abolitionists as wrong. I'm on the wrong computer to have the history so I can't get back and find out just how they didn't justify making men free.

    I didn't go along with its conclusions,
    Despite its Biblical allusions,
    But, given all the war inclusions
    It's a hymn I can't sing no more.

    It's a tune it's really easy to do this stuff to.
  • Never mind. At least you did your level best to meet the deceased's wishes, and, hopefully, you will never have to sing this 'hymn' again!
    :grimace:
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited February 2020
    Wikipedia says it comes from an abolitionist source.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic

    So there are those who even today will take an opposite view.
  • Not a chorus, but the above references to burning hymns at crematoria reminds me, we were careful to choose the New Revised Standard Version of the reading from 1 Corinthians 13, to avoid the reference to giving up a body to be burned.
  • I have found the link to the Confederate-ish interpretation of the hymn.
    https://www.rediscoveringthebible.com/BattleHymn.html
  • Penny S wrote: »
    I have found the link to the Confederate-ish interpretation of the hymn.
    https://www.rediscoveringthebible.com/BattleHymn.html

    I will never understand the apologists for the Slavers' Rebellion. How can anyone who claims to be a Christian prattle on about the personal piety of the rebel generals while ignoring what it was they were fighting to protect?
  • Enoch wrote: »
    I think I can beat that for bad taste and incongruity. I attended a secular funeral where as the curtains drew round the coffin, Johnny Cash's Ring of Fire was played!

    One deceased requested the coffin leave the church to 'Hey, you, get off of my cloud...'. He was a big Rolling Stones fan and thought it would be funny. To be fair, it did bring a lot of smiles and was pretty much in keeping with the tribute.

    Other interesting exit songs at crem or church have included: Al Jolson's 'Mammy' - the deceased's much loved party turn, and 'If I had a hammer' because the deceased was a notorious and not entirely successful DIY-er.

    One exit theme that didn't go quite to plan was the request to play Elvis's 'Love me tender' - the special song between the widower and his deceased wife. But the wrong track was cued and the noise that went racketing around the crem as we all solemnly assembled to leave was 'Well, since my baby left me....'.; before it suddenly came to a halt and was replaced with the requested song. Clergy facepalming at such times isn't allowed, so it was 'wearing best neutral face' time as the mourners approached to leave the building wondering what had just happened.
  • I was hoping to get a favourite song from Oh What a Lovely War when I go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-UHaCZSBeM. My Dear Wife tells me this is unlikely to happen.
  • O what a shame. One of the most moving films ever made about the futility of Death, and War...
    :cry:

    Spontaneous Eye Leakage guaranteed.
This discussion has been closed.