Monthly column on hymns and songs

The Pimlico Plumbers (plc) have twice been voted Domestic Installers of the Year. Or so I believe from the information displayed on the side of the white van parked just up the road from us.

For the intelligent evangelical reader, this piece of free advertising raises several immediate questions. First, what is their phone number? Second, when did this happen - recently or around 1924, for instance? Third, were the years consecutive and, if so, what happened the third year? Fourth (multiple), who were the voters, was the result close, predictable, or contested, and were the results independently verified? I am sorry that to all these queries I have no firm answers.

To my shame I have to confess, I did not know that 'Domestic Installer of the Year' was a prestigious status, or even that there was any such thing. The Booker and Turner Prizes and Goal of the Season one is aware of, and I did hear that the Christian mission 'Habitat for Humanity' walked off with the USA's 'Builder of the Year' award in the 1990s. But Domestic Installers; it's another world out there.

'Gospel Song of the Year'?

As you know, this is the Hymn Column, and I expect you are asking further questions already. To get nearer the point, did you know that just across the Atlantic from here, people vote for 'Gospel Song of the Year', 'Worship Song of the Decade', and, for all I know, 'Hymn of the Century'?

In EN we have indulged in our mini-polls of your favourites; but can these exercises lean a little too far towards the serious side? Do you think that the following tale of two Christian singers has anything to do with it? (I have changed the names to avoid long legal battles.)

I quote, 'The first big Christian concert that Jim ever attended was at the Town Hall in Croydon. One of the artistes paraded was a young aspiring Billy Chalmers. As Jim watched him perform, he thought to himself, "This is what I want to do!"'

The rest is the history of a couple of household names in the song world. I simply ask, not for the first time, is there any other form of Christian service where such language and motivation would be appropriate or even acceptable? And if not, why not? It so happens that we have recently seen the last earthly years of two or three devoted and elderly servants of Christ. So far as I am aware, neither got any awards for being Mission Administrator of the Month, Hospital Pharmacist of the Year, Bible Study Leader of the Decade, or Scripture Translator of the Century. They never aspired, never paraded and never performed. Their names never adorned the sides of a van.

We may not see their like again, which is a pity. But they have gone to a reward which some of the others may never see, because they've had theirs already. But while you are still with me, do you ever find yourself singing words that make you look and listen twice?

Start from the Psalms?

How about this from Anna Laetitia Waring, best known for 'In heavenly love abiding'? Another hymn of hers has the lines, 'And a new song is in my mouth, to long-loved music set...'Is that really what she means? 'We like the new words, Lord, but please let's stick to the old tunes!' At least we gather that in her view, text and tune are never indissolubly joined. She read from the Hebrew Psalms every day; did that help to shape her view of words and music? Even reading them daily in English isn't a bad start.

A tale of two singers

'Gospel Song of the Year'?

Start from the Psalms?

Christopher Idle

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