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We sang this at church a few weeks ago at the start of the Christmas season.  I had never heard of it, much less heard it, much less sung it before.  I find myself drawn back to it repeatedly, and I can hardly stop playing through it on the piano.  I definitely envy the time in church history when these were the contemporary hymns of the day.

The hymn sounded terrible the first time, since I was apparently not the only one who was unfamiliar with it, and I was trying to read the bass part; that's what I do.

A few objectively good congregational hymns are still being written such as "Because He Lives."  I would like to write hymn lyrics.  Good melodies are more commonly produced than theologically strong lyrics, and I find it easy to rhyme.  I pray that one of my children will have an affinity for congregational voice composition.

Let's do a comparison of the song in the title and a popular, contemporary one which gets way too much credit and throat time.  I'll save the better one for last.  I'll bet some of you didn't know that there are objective rules to make music good or better.  Well, there are, and guess who discovered them for the twelve-tone scale that we use.  The Father of Music of course!  I wonder how he earned that title.

"I Could Sing of Your Love Forever"

Over the mountains and the sea

Your river runs with love for me

And I will open up my heart

And let the healer set me free

I'm happy to be in the truth

And I will daily lift my hands

For I will always sing

Of when you came down

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

Over the mountains and the sea

Your river runs with love for me

And I will open up my heart

And let the healer set me free

I'm happy to be in the truth

And I will daily lift my hands

For I will always sing

Of when your love came down

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

Oh, I feel like dancing

This foolishness, I know

But when the world has seen the light

They will dance with joy

Like we're dancing now

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

I could sing of your love forever

"Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming"

Lo, how a rose e'er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse's lineage coming

As men of old have sung.

It came, a Flower bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half-gone was the night.

Isaiah was foretold it,

The Rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it,

The virgin mother kind.

To show God's love aright

She bore to men a Savior,

When half-gone was the night.

This Flower, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor

The darkness everywhere.

True man, yet very God,

From sin and death He saves us

And lightens every load.

I chose the former song from this list (http://www.praisecharts.com/ccli-top-100/).  The comparison could be done with any song from there.  I don't appreciate songs that emphasize feelings and feelings instead of feelings and intellect.  God is a God of knowledge.  The Psalms teach us how to feel, which implies that we might have incorrect feelings sometimes.

My feelings need to line up with what I know.  I have nothing against new songs.  Even "Amazing Grace" was new at one point, and I can hardly sing "In Christ Alone" enough times.  I'm referring to the songs that are objectively bad according to the laws of music theory.  I simply think that poorly written songs should not be immortalized.

Let's not sing the song with no harmony where the chorus made up of one sentence repeated eight times is more than half the song.  Let's do sing the song with some skilled effort put into the poetry and an intricate, simple, four-part harmony.

In Christ,

Adam