VIEW POINT
Have we lost something precious? Bandmaster Adrian Lyons (Colchester Citadel) considers the types of songs we do and don’t sing
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HRISTMAS passed with a little noticed anniversary: it was 60 years since Carols for Choirs was first available. The book contained many favourite carols, and the music arranged by Sir David Willcocks has become very familiar. Two of those, ‘O Come, All Ye Faithful’, with its descant for the verse ‘Sing choirs of angels’, and ‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’, with a descant for the final verse, are particularly familiar. My previous article (Salvationist 8 January) referred to cultural capital, which I guess would include those Willcocks settings, and at Christmas I was reminded that much more of the Army’s cultural capital is at risk. I was delighted that a 25-year-old had asked for an Army songbook for a present. She looked through it on Christmas Day and, after some time, started saying repeatedly, ‘Don’t know that one… Don’t know that one.’ The songs to which she had never been exposed tended to be from the ‘Holiness’ section, such as the great songs of Albert Orsborn. This is not to suggest for one moment that it is her fault. She has spent all her life in The Salvation Army and has worshipped regularly at three different corps. The issue is more that our heritage has been neglected. Does any of this matter? Are these just the ramblings of a sad old Salvationist yearning for an imagined past? I would argue that it does matter. I have been a Salvationist long enough to know that many songs become popular for a time and then fall into disuse as others are introduced. As a bandmaster, there is no greater advocate for the Twelve Scripture-Based Songs series than me, but have we lost something precious?
In the 18th century, Charles Wesley was hugely successful at teaching the faith through hymns. His ‘And Can It Be?’ (SASB 241), for example, gets to the heart of the gospel message. This tradition of teaching through songs is also clearly found in those of John Gowans that pepper the current songbook – for example, ‘If Human Hearts Are Often Tender’ (SASB 467). The early Salvation Army produced many songs of personal testimony as well as battle songs that inspired and motivated. Then, as the Movement matured, came songs of personal devotion. As William Himes, OF, pointed out on Melody in My Heart on Fortress Radio, these songs represent our Movement’s gift to the great catalogue of hymns available to the Christian Church. By the 1970s, songs of personal devotion had perhaps driven out a sense of praise. However, one critic wrote as long ago as 1904: ‘I think sometimes that The Salvation Army comes short in the matter of worship. I do not think that there is amongst us so much praising God for the wonders he has wrought, so much blessing him for his every kindness, or so much adoration of his wisdom, power and love as there might, nay, as there ought to be.’ That critic was one William Booth. Over the past quarter of a century many corps have adopted almost exclusively a praise and adoration approach. As Harold Hill writes, ‘There
has been a move away from the use of the Salvation Army songbook and traditional hymns of the Church to the use of music and song material from other, though limited, sources.’ Here is Hill’s crucial point: ‘There is a much-reduced theological range in the sung material with more of “me” stuff – as there was in the early Army, though with a different message and often less theological depth. There can be a concentration on triumphalist, “feel good” and “prosperity gospel” themes, to the exclusion of the original Army preoccupation with the needs of the lost and disadvantaged. It tends to be music for the self-conceived saints rather than for the sinners.’ That may be harsh, but it makes the point that, in some expressions of Salvation Army, the pendulum has swung away from songs that teach or songs of confession and contrition. As the late Commissioner Harry Read, OF, proved with Commissioner Dick Krommenhoek, it is possible to produce holiness songs in an engaging and popular manner. Perhaps their song ‘I Dare To Be Different’ (SASB 321) is becoming part of our cultural capital. I hope so. ADRIAN IS PRESENTER OF MELODY IN MY HEART ON FORTRESS RADIO Salvationist 29 January 2022
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