COG trivia: In my heart there rings a melody

What relationship has this hymn by Elton M. Roth to Herbert Armstrong? No, it didn't appear in the famous purple hymnal (nor even in the earlier gray hymnal). You wouldn't think, looking at the lyrics (see the original PDF here) that Herb would have had much use for it, and it's clear modern devotees don't. Yet it's an important part of GCI/WCG/Radio Church of God history.

The answer lies in the Autobiography of Herb Armstrong.

In those days "The Radio Church of God" opened with an opening theme, the hymn composed by Elton Menno Roth (who later became my personal friend) "In My Heart There Rings a Melody," sung in lively manner by our "Radio Church Quartette." (1967 edition, p.508)

Yes brethren, this is the foundation theme song to the Church of God. More than that, it was composed by Herb's "personal friend"!

So can we expect to hear it at this year's Feast of Tabernacles I wonder, at least among the most slavishly devoted of Herb's imitators?

A solo by Stephen Flurry, Bob Thiel tinkling the ivories and Dave Pack on the tambourine?

Can't you just picture Ronnie Weinland on the harmonica with Rod Meredith clapping and stomping along in time?

For those of us who don't read music, there's a recording for you to sample here.

The Old Gray Hymnal

My memories of WCG are intertwined with the purple hymnal. It was the official hymn book when I first attended on the Feast of Trumpets in 1975 (at a forgotten rural hall a few kilometres out of Hamilton), and was still a solid fixture at the last service I attended (at the Epsom Girls Grammar venue in Auckland), years later. Even now those Dwight Armstrong hymns pop back into memory at unexpected moments - especially, for some reason, on long road trips.

But before purple there was gray, and by the miracle of PDF files we can now all peruse the hymnal that reigned in the Empire prior to 1974. (This is perhaps the 1958 edition, updated after the name change from Radio Church of God in 1966, though that's just a guess on my part as the PDF files carry no copyright information. Can anyone clarify?)

You may be as surprised as I was at what the brethren were singing way back then. Of course there are lots of Dwight Armstrong's earlier tunes, though many carry different titles. But how about these weeds in the garden of the Eternal:

- Standing On The Promises
- Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus
- I Would Be True
- Open My Eyes, That I May See
- No Night There
- Safely Thro' Another Week*
- Just When I Need Him Most
- Jesus Calls Us, O'er The Tumult
- With Happy Voices Singing
- Blessed Assurance
- It Is Well With My Soul*
- I Need Thee Every Hour
- I Love To Tell The Story
- Sweet Hour Of Prayer
- What A Friend We Have In Jesus
- In The Garden
- Count Your Blessings*
- Tell Me The Old, Old Story
- Day Is Dying In The West
- Blest Be The Tie That Binds

All of these were "purged in purple," and it seems that the WCG took a further turn to the sectarian (at least musically) in the process. (You have to wonder how Onward Christian Soldiers managed to survive the cull of 74.) Would current PCG, RCG or LCG members feel comfortable with these pre-purple "Protestant" songs? I found just browsing through the pages brought on, as you'll see if you click the links above, a definite Pat Boone moment- very scary! - surely the Old Rugged Cross would be only a few pages away... (it wasn't.)

In 1993 the "reformed" WCG published their new hymnal, which reintroduced a few of these titles (the ones with an asterisk), but the rest continue to disappear out of living memory.


You can download your own copy of the gray hymnal here.

Addendum: I keep looking at the way the color/colour grey/gray is spelled in the above item, and brethren it just ain't right! Everyone in New Zealand familiar with Footrot Flats knows it's the Grey Ghost, not the Gray Ghost. The problem is compounded by the fact that, in deference to the number of AW readers coming from General Washington's rebel colonies, I usually adopt US spelling. But, without wanting to labour/labor the point, here's the best discussion on this weighty issue I've come across.

Whew! Glad to have that off my chest.

Wie habe ich dein Gesetze so lieb!

That's "O how love I thy law!" in German, specifically Heinrich Schutz's Opus ultimum, the Schwanengesang, a rendition of the tediously long Psalm 119. Performance of Schwanengesang takes more than 70 minutes, faithfully following Luther's translation, and the version I have is split between two CDs. Surprisingly, it's a joy to listen to.

Schutz was born in 1585, and this is his last major composition. It's light years removed from Dwight Armstrong's various attempts to harness the text of Psalm 119. The elder Armstrong brother took at least four bites at the task, and you can find them on pages 90 through 93 of the old purple hymnal. The music of the 1600s was something else again, difficult to describe, but, once you adjust to the style, strangely beautiful. The irony is that this particular work was only recovered in its entirety in 1970, and then performed in 1981. That may in fact have also been its premiere, for Schutz's patron, Georg II, had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism, and his musical tastes then took a decidedly Italian turn.

Psalm 119, which is a paean of praise to the Torah, seems an unlikely project for a German composer living in the shadow of the Reformation, and Luther's Old Testament an unlikely text, but stranger things have happened.

I can only say that even the least promising of the biblical texts can be transformed into something remarkable at the hands of a great artist. Whether you'll find the polyphonic pleasures of the seventeenth century to your taste (you'll listen in vain for a tune to hum!) may be judged by listening to the samples available on Amazon.

Sorry, no comments on this post. Back to normal next time ;-)

The Dwight Stuff

You can tell a lot about a church by looking at their hymnal. Just cast a critical eye over what's on offer and you'll get a fairly accurate feel for the sponsoring denomination or group.

Take the Fred Coulter hymnal for example (you can download a copy here.) Like most COG sects, the impressively named Christian Biblical Church of God has produced its own songbook. It's not large – 75 odd pages (some odder than others). That compares with around 130 in the WCG's old purple book (available in PDF here), 310 in the 1993 version, and – crossing to another tradition entirely – 950 in the Lutheran Book of Worship.

The first thing you notice is that most of the hymns are simply reproduced from the purple book. The multi-talented Mr. Coulter has put together a couple of his own with the able assistance of Mary Schaeffer (modestly placed in the front of the publication), and there's a smattering of non-COG favorites to bulk it out (Sweet Hour of Prayer, Blessed Assurance etc.) Herb would have had a hernia!

The volume is copyrighted 2002, which is well before WCG put Dwight Armstrong's creations into the public domain, so presumably Fred arranged permission to include them. (If you feel the nostalgia rising, one of the best online resources is here, where you can listen to tunes from the "old gray" Radio Church of God hymnal, the purple replacement, the 93 version, CGI's 1990s book and UCG's 1997 song booklet... knock yourself out!)

I'm not sure whether the fact that Holy, Mighty Majesty! still gets an occasional airing in various living rooms on Saturday mornings is a comfort or not. And, more to the point, would it still be possible to sing Behold the Day Will Come without thinking “1972”?

The sad fact is that I'm still fond of some of those old chestnuts. Prolonged exposure can do that to you. They get under your skin and slowly work their way out again decades later while you're driving between cities and unable to handle another moment of talk-radio or formulaic radio ga-ga.

But even more bizarre is the reality that, when some of us were wide-eyed members, trotting along to weekly services with the hymnal, wide-margin KJV and notebook inside regulation briefcase, we actually found Dwight's dire dirges painful. Go figure.

Dwight flight

According to the grapevine, WCG has recently placed all of Dwight Armstrong's hymns into the public domain, which means they're available for anyone who wants to make use of them.

Poor old Dwight got a bad press in some quarters. His hymns were described as dirges, and there were dark mutterings about plagiarism of tunes. But I have to say, after growing up with the very real dirges of Lutheran liturgy and hymnody, I found them (or at least some of them) quite refreshing when I first started attending. There is nothing as plain awful as a badly tuned organ accompanying a badly tuned congregation singing something that should have received a decent burial in the 16th century.

As for the plagiarism: it seems to have been something of an Armstrong family tradition. The words were from the Psalms, so I guess that was okay. The tunes are apparently suspiciously similar to a Scottish Psalter of long ago. If Dwight managed to make a buck out of his brother's paranoia about Protestant songs, well, that's fine by me. I hope he at least got his tithes back.

These days it may be all praise choruses and waving arms, but the old purple book still has its charms... kind of.

5 Personal favorites:
How Excellent in all the Earth (7)
O Eternal who shall dwell (14)
For Even from my Youth O God (52)
Holy Mighty Majesty (75)
He Shall Reign for Evermore (78) - complete with a "melancholy sparrow" :)

5 Personal un-favorites:
By the Waters of Babylon (103) - now the Boney M version I liked!
Blest and Happy Is the Man (1) - this one was thrashed to death
Let Thy Chastening be in Measure (31) - "my loins are filled with burning" :o
But as for me I'll call on God (45) - top of the hit parade when GTA was chucked out
O Pity Me, Be Gracious God (47) - and pity anyone trying to sing this one!