Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Sing of the Lord’s goodness” by Ernest Sands and dated 1981. I have come across it before, but thought it was by Geoff Weaver. It’s a traditional style hymn of four verses with chorus, but the music is far from traditional in its use of syncopation and unusual 12.7.12.7 metre.
Although not stated to be a psalm setting, the last verse is clearly taken from Psalm 150 with its call to praise God with singing, trumpet, lute, harp, cymbals and dancing. Nowadays, guitar and drums are far more common than lutes and cymbals, but the principle is unchanged. The chorus continues the theme of praising God with music. This just makes me realise how much I have missed the congregational singing in church with Covid restrictions. A few times during the spring and summer we’ve sung a final hymn outdoors after the service, but so far that’s all.
Some of the other words (verses 1-3) are at least in the style of the Psalms even if not direct quotations. God’s mercy and everlasting love, faithfulness, power, honour and splendour are certainly found there, also his ability to give “courage in our darkness, comfort in our sorrow”. Verse 2 is clearly referring to Jesus: “Risen from the snares of death, his word he has spoken, one bread he has broken, new life he now gives to all”.
Although I like the hymn very much, I have to say I think it is a bit of a missed opportunity!
To begin with the tune: I had always thought the tune was based on Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five” jazz piece, with its catch 5/4 rhythm (Dave Brubeck wrote a series of jazz pieces in unusual time-signatures, under an umbrella title of “Time out” – and the CD is well worth buying and studying for its artistry). It was used as a signature tune for a classic TV series “The secret life of machines”, and it has always been a very catchy idea. And it’s great to use it for a hymn.
The “missed opportunity” is really about the strength or otherwise of the lyrics. Ernest Sands has made no effort to rhyme his words, and in such a rhythmically-dependent hymn this really sticks out like a sore thumb (or at least, it does to my ears). On the larger scale there’s not really a coherence of theme to the verses: as Stephen says, some of them seem to be extracts from Psalms, but apart from v4 being from Ps 150 it is hard to place them exactly. Verse 2 is the most “Christian”, but how exactly does the resurrection lead into the word and sacrament?
I think this is a great singalong song, but at the end of the day the tune sticks in the mind but the words fade.