Today’s hymn from “Sing Praise” is Timothy Dudley Smith’s “Above the voices of the world around me”. It comes with its own tune, but John played it to the better known Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) which the words do fit, with the odd stretched syllable. The words are copyrighted and too long to be reproduced here without permission but can be found online here.
The three verses are all written in the first person – it’s an introspective hymn – and the theme is being called by Jesus, who is named in each verse. The first is about the voice of Jesus calling me, as the first line has it, “above the voices of the world around me”. His call is, as one would expect from a Lenten hymn, to “turn from sins and put the past behind you, take up your cross and come and follow me”. In Lent we read of Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness where it is the Devil’s voice that tries to distract him from his mission, but the Devil usually works more subtly through other things, whether the classic ‘deadly sins’ of lust, gluttony, anger and so on, or today’s more subtle temptations of TV, social media and Internet.
The second verse asks what my response might be, feeling that I have nothing worthy to offer Jesus, but concludes that “I come … and in repentance turn to you alone”. The Gospels record Jesus calling his motley crew of fishermen, tax collectors and housewives, without asking for any testimonials. When he called Nathaniel Bartholomew, he already saw into his heart and knew him to be a “true Israelite”. If Jesus calls us to serve him, he already knows he has found what he’s looking for: we need no qualifications other than willingness, no reference other than his own death on the cross to make us worthy.
The last verse is the promise to serve in faith. In singing it ith meaning, I ask Jesus to “let me become what you shall choose to make me”, which may well be different from what I had in mind for my life. Some people find themselves called to a life of poverty or celibacy, others to working in dangerous places and among deprived communities, others to long hours of unpaid voluntary work. But all in the name of serving Jesus. What matters is that, as the final line puts it, “in his love my new-born life begins”.
I played this hymn to the Londonderry Air because I’m quite certain that Timothy Dudley-Smith wrote it for this tune (earlier in these comments I reported a conversation I’d had with him about tunes in general, at a Hymn Society conference) – and besides that, John Barnard’s tune is obviously derivative from this tune as it follows the same rhythm throughout (except for that tricky last line that Stephen points out).
The whole question of setting Christian words to secular music is of course a big topic for discussion – generally speaking, the Londonderry Air is associated with the song “Danny boy” in the UK population, and there are people (a lady I know, for example) for whom this is a real turn-off (because she remembers her dad singing it when coming home drunk from the pub). And in Christian circles the tune is associated with “I cannot tell why he whom angels worship”. So I do agree with John Barnard that the lyrics could ideally do with another tune … but I don’t find this particular tune ticks the right boxes for me. It isn’t distinctively different enough from the Londonderry Air to stand on its own feet as a worthy alternative; I’m not convinced by either of the rises to the top D, the E-minor at the end of line 6 seems arbitrary; and somehow I yearn for something which doesn’t put an inevitable dotted minim on the fourth syllable of every line.
I like Timothy’s words, and although I don’t think they match the outstanding quality of some of his more popular hymns (like “Tell out my soul”, for example), I think he has a refreshing way of putting the basics of Christian commitment into words. The appeal of Christ in the first verse is clearly stated, and the way in which it can take root in our hearts and allow some of the other cares and preoccupations to be confined to their proper perspective. The honesty of humility is helpful in verse 2, as is the unreserved commitment of verse 3.
Perhaps I’ll have a go at writing a different tune one day?