Overrated hymns

There are a few things in our Mormon culture that annoy me--like the perception that it's OK to watch a movie as long as it's not rated R, or that the Book of Mormon is the only worthwhile book of scripture, or that prayers on a rainy day must always say "the moisture we are receiving." Not to mention saying a blessing on refreshments.

But one of the ones that annoys me the most is that we can't sing a hymn if we don't know it. People don't want to sing new hymns. But that's ridiculous. Every hymn you know was new to you at some point. There are 341 hymns in our current edition of the hymnbook. And yet we get stuck hearing the same tired hymns over and over again, while there are numerous hymns that we never, ever hear. The hymnbook itself says that we should seek to find a balance between familiar and lesser-known hymns. But when was the last time you sang "Truth Eternal" (4), "Awake and Arise" (8), "Come Rejoice" (9), or "Come Sing to the Lord" (10)? That's four in just the first ten hymns!

So here are some hymns that I think are highly overrated or oversung. That does not mean that these hymns are bad--it just means we need a little more variety.

"Come Thou Fount." This one bugs me more than all the others, because this is a song that really bores me because it is oversung, despite the fact that IT IS NOT IN THE HYMNBOOK! It was in the 1948 edition (the previous one), but it was taken out for the 1985 (current) version. I have heard various speculation about why it was taken out. The one that seems most likely to me is copyright issues, but I have also heard speculation that it wasn't sung enough, that it was sung too much, or that its lyrics could potentially be misunderstood. Whatever the reason, we surely don't miss it, because versions of this song are a dime a dozen. It seems like three-fourths of special musical numbers are this song. I like to collect hymn recordings, and when I look at CDs with hymns on them, it is unbelievable how many of them have "Come Thou Fount." My mom even has a Christmas CD with this song. It is not a Christmas song! I once considered joining my ward choir, but when I found out they were singing this song, I decided not to. There are 341 hymns IN the hymnbook, dozens of which we never sing, and yet you're going for one that is NOT in the hymnbook and is overdone? It's not that I think it's a bad song. I just don't find it particularly spectacular, especially not spectacular enough to merit the status of default musical number. Once on my mission, I heard some missionaries sing "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" (335) to the tune of "Come Thou Fount." Why would you do that? I think "Brightly Beams" has a far more interesting tune than "Come Thou Fount." If it were still in the hymnbook, I can't decide if it would be worse or better--on the one hand, we'd have more access to it, but on the other hand, it wouldn't be as special. And for the record, it is "Come Thou Fount," not "Come Thou Font."

"If You Could Hie to Kolob" (284). Many years ago, I overheard someone at the store having a conversation and saying that you can be a good Mormon without having "If You Could Hie to Kolob" as your favorite hymn. If I can overhear such a conversation at the local Shopko and remember and agree with it, you know there's a problem. I do think it's a pretty tune, but it's just overdone. We don't sing it often in sacrament meeting because it has deeper doctrine, doctrines that can be more controversial to people of other faiths. (Most of my readership is either Mormon or just plain non-believers, so I can talk about it.) I don't know if Mormons think it's special because we don't sing it often, or because it has those profound doctrines, or because it's kind of taboo, but they sure do like it. It was sung in my ward conference today. Like I said, I like the tune, and there's nothing wrong with strong doctrines. But it's just overrated. One mix CD I saw on my mission was called "Founts of Kolob"--just different versions of those two hymns. Fortunately, I never heard that one. The idea is bad enough.

"Praise to the Man" (27). People are hesitant to sing "If You Could Hie to Kolob," yet no one bats an eye at singing "Mingling with Gods." This song also makes it seem as though we worship Joseph Smith. We don't, of course, but it makes us seem like we do. I get so bored singing this song, despite the fact that it's an upbeat tempo. And that's another thing--it drives me completely crazy when the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings this song, because they sing it really slow. I do not think the tune is meant to be slow! If you put the words to a different tune, slow would be OK. But not this one! I've become so bored with this song that when we sing it in priesthood meetings, I will sing the lyrics to "Hail to the Brightness of Zion's Glad Morning" (42) instead.

"We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet" (19). This song is OK for situations where there are no hymn books or where there are limited pianists, since it's a song everyone knows. In the last area of my mission, we sang this every. single. week. in priesthood meetings because that was the only song the Aaronic priesthood could play. That's excessive. At that point, a cappella (or finding another pianist) would have been better. What bothers me most is that people think of prophets and they automatically think of this song. It's in the "Restoration" section of the hymnbook, but it would fit better in the "Praise and Thanksgiving" section. Only the first line has anything to do with prophets. The rest is just a hymn of gratitude. If you don't believe me, just think about it. You probably have the words memorized, since we sing it so much.

"Ye Elders of Israel" (319). I really used to like this song. But since it's sung at least once a month in priesthood meetings, I have become so bored by it. There are lots of other priesthood songs--why do we only sing this one?

"Joy to the World" (201). This is the first hymn in the Christmas section, and I think it is the one that is sung the most. But I think it is placed at the beginning of the Christmas section not because it is the best but because it is a good transition between the Easter hymns (197-200) and the rest of the Christmas hymns (202-214). The tune is rather uninteresting. But even more than that, the lyrics aren't very Christmassy. In fact, it has hardly anything to do with Christmas, unless you think of Christmas as just being about Jesus, in which case I might suggest you think about him year round. As a matter of fact, the 1948 edition of the hymnbook actually says, "Joy to the world, the Lord will come." The fact that you can change the lyric to say that proves that it's not very Christmassy. Now, I still count it as a Christmas song (due to tradition), but it's not the best. "Once in Royal David's City" (205) is a Christmas song that is more Christmassy and more beautiful, yet we rarely sing it.

"I Know that My Redeemer Lives" (136) and "I Am a Child of God" (301). I feel blasphemous mentioning these, because there's nothing wrong with them and they're simple yet profound. I can't say anything bad about them, except that I get sooo bored singing them. Overrated? I would say no; Oversung? I would say yes.

So what should we sing instead? Some of my favorite lesser-known hymns are "Awake and Arise" (8), "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken" (46), "Great God Attend While Zion Sings" (88), "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me" (104), and "Thy Spirit, Lord, Has Stirred Our Souls" (157). (By the way, I did not consult a hymnbook in making this post--all the numbers were provided from memory.)

Now, there are rumors about a new hymnbook. I don't know when this new hymnbook will come out (whether it will be months or years), but I want to make some predictions about what I think will happen. Then when the new one comes out, I can say I guessed correctly, and I will have the documentation to prove it.

• "The Morning Breaks" will maintain its place as hymn number 1.
• Many of the mountain/Utah hymns will be removed. If "The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close" (37) manages to stay in, the lyric that says, "Where roamed at will the fearless Indian band/the templed city of the Saints now stands" will certainly be modified or removed. 
• "Faith in Every Footstep" and "Behold the Wounds in Jesus' Hands" will be added.
• "Come Thou Fount" will probably be restored, which could be either good or bad.
• The sections of songs for men and songs for women will be cut down or eliminated. I definitely think that the songs that are neither for men or for women but are simply choral arrangements for men's or women's choirs will be adapted to be regular hymns. Specifically, "Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy" (335) will no longer be a men's hymn.
• The patriotic songs may have additional countries (like Canada or New Zealand), but more likely will be cut down or eliminated. I can't think of any specifically American lyrics in "My Country, 'Tis of Thee" (339), so I can see it staying.
• I think the total number of hymns will decrease.

And when they revise the Children's Songbook (from 1989), here's what I think will change.

• There will be fewer season and fun songs. A few years ago, the nursery manual was revised so that there are no longer lessons like "I can be thankful for fish," so I think some of those more trivial songs will leave. They will keep the classics like "Popcorn Popping" or "Give, Said the Little Stream." I suspect that "Give, Said the Little Stream" will finally give in to popularity and say, "The grass grows greener still." (The lyric is, and always has been, "the fields grow greener still," despite what people actually sing.)
• "Scripture Power," "I Know that My Savior Loves Me," and "If the Savior Stood beside Me" will be added. 
• The tune of "Latter-day Prophets" will be lengthened to accommodate more prophets. As it stands, there's only room for one or two more prophets. 
• Some songs will be less childish and more doctrinal. 
• The layout of the book will feature photographs instead of illustrations. 

And when they do make the new hymnbook, I can only hope they have the  Tabernacle Choir sing the audio recordings, instead of that dismal "choir" they currently use. 

Blast that hydraulic gradient!

The first round of midterms ended this week. On Tuesday I had a groundwater test. I think I did reasonably well, but there was one question in which we had to find the hydraulic gradient, but I was trying to find the hydraulic conductivity, and there wasn't enough information. In fact, I solved the hydraulic gradient in trying to solve the hydraulic conductivity, but I didn't realize that, so I don't know how many points I will get.

Last week I took my Old English test, and I thought I did OK but not great. Thus I was stunned when I got it back and got a 97! I tied for second high score! I actually missed a lot, but our professor said that she graded everything, then lumped the tests into piles and assigned scores based on how well we did. So it was more subjective. But that's OK—I'm happy with my score, and even the girl who got the lowest score was happy with hers. Maybe I will take Old English 2 after all.

On Tuesday I also went running. When I left it was lightly raining. I was running toward the mountains, and there was an enormous rainbow. There were also low-hanging clouds, snow on the higher peaks, and trees with changed leaves. Then later, the sun was setting and shining through clouds. There was pink sunlight shining on the Mississippian limestone. It was simply beautiful and wonderful. I love fall.

Then when I came home, my nipple was bleeding. If I were a mother with sucking child, my child would be a vampire.

This week I also began watching my daily Halloween shows, beginning with my 1960s sitcoms (The Beverly Hillbillies, The Addams Family, and Bewitched). In the past, I thought that my 60s shows were classics and high quality. Now I realize it's really not that way. I think Bewitched is fairly high quality, and Green Acres is genuinely hilarious, but most 60s sitcoms are hardly intelligent. I like them because they're clean and because they have cultural/historical significance, but I think that I probably like them for the same reasons I like Jan Terri—they're so ridiculous they're entertaining. Gilligan turned invisible from being struck by lightning? All of Mayberry thought that a goat could explode? Sergeant Schultz never reported Colonel Hogan? I think only in the 1960s could a show about a flying nun last for three whole seasons. After one Addams Family episode, my roommate Scott said, “The 60s were rough.” It's kind of true. But at least they didn't have to resort to inappropriate content, as most shows today do--I think they choose dirty things simply to shock, not because it's funny or intelligent. 

Yesterday I made a project about geology for my corpus linguistics class. I may have inserted some subtle (or not-so-subtle) biases concerning evolution and global warming. My professor seemed skeptical that I could make a project about geology interesting, but I hope he finds mine suitable.

I feel like I'm always writing about boring things. How can I change my blog posts to make them more interesting? 

Oh, it was THAT week.

This week was homecoming at BYU. Which I really don't care about.

I really think there must be something wrong with me, because our culture is so greatly interested in sports and teams, and yet I could not be less interested. I can't tell a touchdown from a layup, and yet society makes sports such a big deal. Increasingly, I think I'm kind of a normal person, but then sports remind me I'm not. But I'm not going to change, because life is easier without them. I don't have to schedule things around games, and I don't have to be disappointed when my team loses. (I kind of understand how enjoying basketball might be helpful, since January and February are pretty dismal. But football? There are too many wonderful things going on in September, October, and November!) I don't hold myself above people who like sports, I just find it strange that they love them so much when I find them so uninteresting.

There were things associated with homecoming that went on, but I didn't participate in most of them. This is my second and my last homecoming at college. On Tuesday, the "devotional" was homecoming opening ceremonies. I thought, "Should I be here?" But I got a free t-shirt out of it, so it was worth it--although it's not a t-shirt I care to wear around.

On Friday my grandparents came down to Provo for the Homecoming Spectacular and took me to dinner. So that was a way I was indirectly affected by homecoming. They also gave me a box of holiday decorations made by a great aunt whom I've never met. They're mostly just Christmas ornaments with different colors. I really like the orange and black cubes, but who ever heard of a Halloween bell?

Then Saturday I watched the homecoming parade from my apartment window, making cynical comments to my roommate the whole time. If I were ever asked to narrate a parade, I would probably get fired, because I would just make snarky comments the whole time. (Especially when the medieval and Dr. Who clubs passed by.)

Before the parade was a pancake breakfast across the street. I didn't go to it, but their music was so loud it was as if I was listening to it myself right in the apartment. Since I didn't think I would be able to concentrate on scripture study, I did other productive things instead. Like submitting an application for graduation. (What!)

Other things I did this week:

• Took a midterm for Old English. It wasn't too bad, but I should have been better at learning OE nouns. I might take Old English 2 next semester, because hopefully that will mostly be translation and not grammar. 
• Went running Friday night, since it was the first time I'd been in Provo for the weekend in four weeks. It was a good run, but it meant that I was totally exhausted for my Saturday morning run.
• Did a project about words from the Pilgrims instead of watching the game. (The project was less interesting than you might expect.) 
• Missed most of institute because I was making water table and potentiometric surface maps. That's OK, though, because the food doesn't come until the end of institute anyway. 

As I have read over past blog posts, it has come to my attention that I am very boring. Sorry about that.

O-C-T-O-B-E-R

With this being conference weekend, this was another busy weekend, but hopefully it should be the last busy one for a while. Last week was my field trip (and it was just in time, since the national parks are closed now) and the week before that was a trip home.

I was hoping that since I already have three credits out of the way, my semester would be easier, but it's still a lot of work. I had to do a lab writeup for Groundwater that took six or seven hours. And then I had to work on a project for my corpus linguistics class, which wasn't too hard, but it took me a long time to figure out what to do for my project. (I wanted to do 1960s TV, but that wasn't too interesting, so I switched to 1950s TV instead.)

Anyway, the weekend started busily Friday. I had a mission reunion in the evening. This reunion was with President Palmer, my second mission president. I always feel awkward at those reunions. I only had President Palmer for the last five months of my mission, and all that time I was in Lewiston, ID, which is one of the edges of the mission. I kind of feel that President Palmer remembers me more from reunions than he does from the mission. That's the impression I get when I talk to him. I really go to these reunions more to see other missionaries.

But that doesn't work too well either. Most of the missionaries at those reunions were after my time, or if they were from my time, I never served around them. I was able to visit with my former companion/roommate Derek Warren, but other than that there were few people I knew there. In fact, there were a few people there whom I knew outside the mission. One is my childhood friend Hillary Ulmer, who also served in the mission, and the other was a girl who used to be in my ward, who is dating someone who went to my mission. She has since unfriended me on Facebook, but that's OK, because one of the missionaries I did know at the reunion I have unfriended as well.

I couldn't stay long at the reunion (which was fine by me, since I didn't know many people, at least not many I cared to talk to) because my old horse friend Kristen was visiting. We went to the Rooftop Concert, but it had been moved inside the Marriott hotel because of the cold. I would have preferred it outside, because it was crowded and noisy, but at least it was warm. When we got there, we decided we didn't care to hear the act that was going on then, so we waited in a lobby until another horse, Carissa, met us there. We went inside to hear the Lower Lights. I love them. Their music is just so fun and meaningful. They're working on a new album, and I think that a lot of the songs they sang will be on the new album, since they weren't on their other albums. I think that was the eighth concert I'd been to this year, and six of them were free. I'm sad that the Rooftop Concert Series is over until May.

Then I drove home for conference. I haven't been home for conference for two years, when I lived at home.

Conference weekend is Holy Week for Mormons (even though Holy Week should be Holy Week), but BYU doesn't seem to care. I mean, they do close their buildings for conference, but we don't get any days off or any reprieves from homework. I think BYU cares most about Christmas. They start putting up Christmas decorations in October and we get time off for the holiday. After Christmas, I think they care most about Valentine's Day. That's the only other holiday for which I have seen significant campus decorations (both the Cougareat and the library). But the most religiously significant events they don't care about. We don't get any days off for conference or Easter, and in fact I think that Easter next year is right in the middle of finals week. What's up with that?

With midterms and projects coming up, this is going to be another busy week. But at least I don't have any weekend plans.