Perry UME Lent
2008
Hope you don’t mind… start another Lenton season with music…
Since we have several congregations here tonight, here’s one written by a Methodist and and a Presbyterian. Written by Emily Wilson, the wife of a Methodist minister in Penn. And a Presbyterian lady, Eliza Hewitt who turned to writing hymns once she was paralyzed by a spinal disease. When We All Get to Heaven
What a Friend.. Canadian Town handyman Joseph Scriven.. Ireland, engaged, girl drowned night before the wedding. Migrated Canada..engaged, she died shortly before their wedding day. Wrote this song as a poem to his mother in Ireland.. He also drowned.
Cherokee National Anthem. “Trail of Tears” … Amazing Grace --Not a spiritual song, but for me a strong Perry connection. Dexter. Mom went to school there and the graduates would gather once a month. For some reason, Scottish singers often include it in their repertoire, but it was written by a Canadian, George Washington Johnson. “Maggie” was Margaret Clark, a pupil of George, a school teacher. Maggie and George fell in love, became engaged, and then Maggie contracted TB. As his new wife was dying, George walked to a nearby hillside overlooking a mill and composed the song. They were married in 1864 and she died in 1865. When You and I Were Young, Maggie
Union army in Civil War, unofficial anthem: “John Brown’s Body.” South had their own set of words. Julie Ward Howe was challenged by a minister friend to write more uplifting lyrics. After a visit to a Union Army camp, she she wrote this. Battle Hymn of the Republic…
America not only has a national anthem, but an “unofficial national anthem.” Written by an immigrant to left Siberia when he was five years old. Wrote this in 1918 (while serving in the Army) for a Ziegfeld Follies show called Yip, Yip, Yaphank. He pulled it from the show at the last minute, thinking it was too solemn. In 1938 when war was again threatening Europe, he thought back to the song he’d tossed aside, thinking we needed a Peace Song. Changed a few lyrics… Kate Smith sang it on her radio show on Armistice Day in 1938. An immediate hit. He donated all the royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. The song takes the form of a prayer in the verse, but the verse is seldom sang.. (While the storm clouds gather far across the sea / Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free / Let us all be grateful for a land so fair, / As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer."By Irving Berlin… God Bless America (by the way, Woody Guthrie wrote his famous, “This Land is Your Land” as a protest against it… felt that maybe we should ask God to bless all nations.)
Sing-a-long from the audience…
Victory in Jesus…I always play this song for your Lenton services… Don’t blame me. You’re the ones who keep asking me back.
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