Contents
(The collection’s contents are ordered by first line, but with song titles shown below)
- God’s Intended Joy
- Ageless God
- All The Wonder
- All Who Throng The Halls Of Heaven
- Among Us And Before Us
- And Did You Know?
- Easter Evening
- Because The Saviour Prayed
- Because You Had An Upstairs Room Prepared
- Bless, O My Soul
- Christ Has Risen
- Come, Host Of Heaven
- Conceiver Of Both Heaven And Earth
- Do Not Be Vexed
- For All The Saints
- For Each Time There Is A Season
- From Adam Came The Apple
- From Heaven’s Attendant Host You Came
- Give Us, This Year
- Go, Silent Friend
- God And Parent Of All People
- God Beyond Glory
- God, Give Us Life
- God It Was
- God Loved The World So Much
- God Our Creator
- God’s Is A World Of Beauty
- God’s Spirit Came At Pentecost
- God’s Spirit Is Here
- Help Us Accept The Past
- How Can We Stand Together?
- I Come In Faith And Fear To God
- I Love The Lord
- I Owe My Lord A Morning Song
- The Beggar
- I Waited Patiently For God
- Inspired By Love And Anger
- Fellow Travellers
- Jesus Calls Us
- Jesus Christ Is Risen
- Jesus Christ Is Waiting
- Jesus Was Doubted
- Just As A Lost And Thirsty Deer
- Keep Me, Lord
- Let Every Nation On The Earth
- Long Have You Loved Me
- Lord Jesus Christ, Shall I Stand Still?
- Lord, When Your Kingdom Comes
- Monarch And Maker
- No Wind At The Window
- The Pedigree
- Not Through Merit
- O Christ, You Wept
- O God, With Holy Righteousness
- O God, You Are My God Alone
- O Lord, Our Lord
- The Web Of Love
- Oh Where Are You Going?
- Out Of The Direst Depths
- Praise The Lord, The Ground Of Goodness
- World Without End
- Praise With Joy
- Shout For Joy
- Sing, My Soul
- Sing Praise To God
- Sing To God With Joy And Gladness
- Sisters And Brothers, With One Voice
- The Day Soon Will Come
- The God Of All Eternity
- The Hope That Hides In Bethlehem
- The House Of God
- The Love Of God Comes Close
- The ‘Other Person’
- The Innocents
- The Time Has Come
- The Whole Creation Waits
- The Word Of God Is Like A Lamp
- There Is A Line Of Women
- The First Miracle
- This Is God’s House
- Though Hope Desert My Heart
- Through Abraham And Moses
- We Cannot Measure
- We Come, Dear Lord, To Celebrate
- We Did Not Know
- We Do Not Ask
- We Rejoice To Be God’s Chosen
- For Those Whose Song Is Silent
- The Hand Of Heaven
- God On Earth
- When God Created Humankind
- When Joseph Was Bridegroom
- Gifts Of The Spirit
- The Truth That Sets Us Free
- Torn In Two
- God’s Surprise
- The Summons
- With Grace And Carefulness
- Within The Circle Of Your Friends
- Women And Men As God Intended
Douglas Galbraith –
These truly are ‘Gospel Songs’. They comb the New Testament and the Old for stories that shine into contemporary life. The songs speak to real, recognisable situations, even the ones we can’t talk about. Some songs we know but there are many great new ones. Try ‘God loved the world so much’ to Wondrous Love (25), ‘Lord Jesus Christ, shall I stand still’ to Ye banks and braes (47), or ‘Sisters and brothers’ (67), ‘The ‘other person’ Jesus saw’ (73), and not least ‘There is a line of women’ (78). And you can sing them on Sunday to a tune you know!
Richenda Milton-Daws –
I must begin with a confession – I am not a musical person. In fact I am unlikely to sing in tune. But I do love the way in which singing the right words together can open up a gospel story, or a theological insight – just as long as the tune is familiar and the lyrics well chosen.
The blurb on the back of Known Unknowns, subtitled “100 Contemporary Texts to Common Tunes, by John L. Bell and Graham Maule (Wild Goose, £9.99) asks:
“What if we kept familiar tunes – hymn tunes or folk tunes – and set words to them in 21st-century idioms?” And that is exactly what the authors have done. None of these songs will be difficult to follow because the tunes will be familiar. But the words are fresh and challenging. Many of the songs cry out for social justice and a fairer world (e.g. number 35, “The beggar” or number 37, “Inspired by love and anger” and the already familiar “Jesus Christ is waiting” – number 41).
Others are hymns of praise to God’s glory (such as the first three songs in the collection), while imaginative responses to Bible stories can be found too (e.g. number 7 “Easter evening” which joins the disciples on the Emmaus Road, number 50, “No wind at the window”, a lovely “take” on the annunciation). In addition I counted 15 new hymns based on psalms – a real example of revisiting our treasures.
I would be nervous introducing new hymns to my small, village congregations (especially since I am no musician). But as these have familiar tunes and such great words, I might just try using one or two. Perhaps more as we all gain confidence.
Richenda Milton-Daws, chair of ArtServe
Methodist Recorder, October 2018
Pastoral Music Magazine, March 2019, NPM –
This latest collection from the Wild Goose Resource Group of the Iona Community in Scotland will be a treasured resource of texts for parish musicians in places large and small. As parishes close and merge, common repertoire in newly formed communities can be hard to find. One solution is to sing well known melodies with texts that connect to the Scriptures of the day. (And subsequently, to expand the number of tunes and texts that are known to the Assembly.) As the authors explain in the introduction: “The texts represent a wide gamut of subject matter, from psalm paraphrases to songs about ecology, abuse, money, depression and delight”. Surprises abound, and singers of these texts can’t help but come to a new level of awareness of the mysteries of faith and human life. Topical, metrical and tunes indexes are included. This collection is a joy, and a challenge, to explore.
Marjorie Dobson –
Do you know a church that has difficulty in finding someone to play music for the hymns? Is that their excuse/reason for not trying out new texts because they have no idea of the tune? Then introduce them to a new book by John L. Bell and Graham Maule containing one hundred contemporary texts to common tunes.
The writers are well known for their striking texts that bring new understanding to faith and discipleship and this collection is intended as a user-friendly introduction of this material to a new audience. The tunes are a mixture of well-known hymns, or folk songs: so well-known that only their titles are given in the index and the hymn tunes can be found in any other hymnal that a church possesses. The folk tunes can be led by a lone singer with other people picking up the tune as it goes along. About half of these texts are already included in various denominational hymnals, but for individual churches, or faith groups, who have not updated their singing resources, this book offers a way to broaden their musical horizons.
There are some striking pairings of text and tunes. No 28: ‘God’s Spirit came at Pentecost’ is matched to SUSSEX CAROL; No 58: ‘Oh, where are you going’ works very well with THE STREETS OF LAREDO and the tune EBENEZER drives the words of No 4: ‘All who throng the halls of heaven’ especially in the last verse where ‘God’s
voice sets the forests quaking: / leaves are stripped and treetops stare. / Though earth trembles, heaven rejoices: / ‘Glory’ echoes everywhere.’ No 6 is a hymn for Maundy Thursday and the named tune is EVENTIDE, which emphasises betrayal in all the verses, but particularly in verse 3: ‘And did you know that while it yet was dark / your fiercest enemies would rub their hands, / and scoundrels who were game for any bribe / would lie and lie again to seal your fate?’
The book is certainly intended to be offered to all sorts of people and circumstances. This is particularly evident in No 60: ‘Praise the Lord, the ground of goodness’, where ‘city voices, pitched in concrete’ are joined as ‘science advances, research deepens’ and ‘creative treasure, skill to counsel or amuse’ feature throughout the verses. But verse 6 says it all: ‘Praise the Lord as churches chorus —/ Quaker-quiet, Salvation-brassed, / Catholic, Orthodox — united, / showing oneness meant to last.’
This collection is worth buying for the target audience, or for anyone who has an interest in hymnody and uses both texts and tunes to enhance their own personal faith, worship and prayer life. Only the most closed mind will find nothing of interest, or challenge, in these words and their musical pairings and if you know one of those churches mentioned at the beginning of this review, then why not introduce them to this collection, or give them a couple of copies as a gift?
Marjorie Dobson
THE HYMN SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND
BULLETIN Spring 2019