The Times-Tribune
CORBIN —
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.”
How many times have you sung, or at least heard that sentence?
I’m betting on maybe 47 times a year. Well, maybe not that often, but it seems to be somewhere all the time. Not that the song is all that bad. In fact it’s kind of good. But I’m sort of tired of it.
Growing up to about 12 or 13 years old at First Baptist Church, I heard a lot of music and even sang some in the kids choirs as I grew. But I really don’t remember “Amazing Grace” from that period in my life. I can’t remember just what we sang in the yet-to-be air conditioned auditorium. I do remember the late Dyche Jones, the music director, singing as a solo “Poor Wayfaring Stranger.”
And I remember one Sunday as the congregation was singing the invitation hymn when one of the older men in the congregation standing in one of the front pews fell over dead into the aisle. Can’t remember his name.
By late 1963 my parents decided that the family of three should move down the street to First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, on the north end of Main Street.
The only hymn I remember from the first Sunday there was “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” It was the Sunday the week after Pres. John Kennedy had been killed and buried. “Eternal Father, ...” also called “The Navy Hymn” was sung by the church choir directed by my high school band director, John Patrick.
By Easter, I was a tenor in the choir.
Music, religious or secular, has been a huge part of my life from long ago. Probably from a time in my life that I simply can’t remember. My grandmother had a piano in her living room, but I never learned to play it.
Today’s popular music though is not my cup of tea. Actually, I don’t like hot tea in a cup. I prefer iced tea in a tumbler with no sugar or other sweetener. And, by the way, it’s “iced” tea, not “ice” tea. Tea made from ice becomes nothing but water. (But, I digress.)
I grew up listening to big band music from the World War II era. Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller (certainly not Glenn Beck, by the way), The Andrews Sisters, Bing Crosby and even Dinah Shore and Rosemary Clooney.
That blended into the music of my teens, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Simon and Garfunkel, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary along with the Kingston Trio.
But the Beatles and the “British invasion” was not (again) my cup of tea.
Of late the popular music that fills the airwaves I simply can’t stand comes from kids like Katy Perry and Justin Bieber, who apparently can only sing one word, “Baby, Baby, Baby.”
Somewhere out there is real, simple, good music but today’s radio stations provide only music by kids, for kids, and kids who don’t know what music really is.
Then, as I started, there’s the music in church. “Amazing Grace” has probably been kept in church along with music made up of high volume guitars, saxophones, tambourines and hand-clapping.
But can you imagine performing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save,” with that kind of instrumentation?
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’ll let any church perform music exactly as it wants, or (to use a religious phrase) “has been called” to perform.
I’d just like to find a church like the Christian Church in Pineville that sings all the hymns with which I grew up accompanied by a grand piano and an organ. And, at least the last time I was there, no guitars, saxophones, trombones nor a drum set with a bass drum, five tom-toms, a snare drum and seven cymbals.
Again, don’t get me wrong. If the music in your church is the music you want in your ears and hearts, that’s fine. But I’d like a bit of softer, tamer, heart-rending music. For me, it’s a good entry into deeper, heart-felt prayer and worship.
Of course I also would like good sermons, liturgy that works, high class theology, padded kneelers and, of course, the comfortable pew.
Which, of course, reminds us of Pierre Berton’s book of the same name, which, published 45 years ago, took a look at the church from an outsider’s view.
Carl Keith Greene is a staff writer for the Times-Tribune and can be contacted at cgreene@thetimestribune.com
