Cringe-making lines in hymns

[JW]

Following a mild rap on the knuckles from Musicus because of an off-topic post, here's my personal cringe-list. If anyone is upset by it, that is not my primary intention and I apologise. All lines are in the 2005 edition of HON.

"O noble Tower of David, of gold and ivory"
"Kum ba yah my Lord; Kum ba yah"
"And io, io, io"
"O and A and A and O"
"Bring me my bow of burning gold, bring me my arrows of desire, bring me my spear"
"All her feasts, her actions, worship"
"O blissful and calm was the wonderful rest that thou gavest thy God in thy virginal breast"
"Shall I play for you, par-rum-pa-pum-pum, upon my drum"
"That title so wondrous fills all our desire"
"Bind us together with cords that cannot be broken"
"All I have, I give you" (addressed to Mary)
"If I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I'd thank you Lord for my fuzzy wuzzy hair"
"O loving Pelican"
"If you get to heaven before I do-sies do-sies"

[organist]

Interesting that a work colleague asked about the Pelican reference when looking at the Chrism Mass booklet and I explained the mediaeval belief that the pelican fed its chicks with its own blood. We had a pelican fountain at school so I knew of this idea for many years.
"Remind thy son that he has paid" - Jesus needs Mary to remind him of anything????
O love that wilt not let me go
Till we cast our crowns before thee - as sung as collection baskets are slung under the altar
So light up the fire and let the flames burn - for cremations
Were you there when they crucified my Lord? The answer is No.

[JW]

Touche - I've been asked to sing Were You There on Good Friday. Unfortunately I can't really refuse because the guy you usually does it died very suddenly last week and we are all feeling the loss.

[VML]

We'll be lighting up the fire Saturday night.

[organist]

Now there's a thought! Imagine the Vigil accompanied by such ditties as Colours of day -"well it does mention fire and we like it"!

[nazard]

My own cringe favourite is "I am the lord of the dance." It packs the cringes in, line after line, verse after verse, more densely than any other hymn I've ever come across. Next worst must be "Peace is flowing like a river." I'm sure there are more, but I try to forget them.

Happy Easter everyone!

[organist]

And it is heretical!

[docmattc]

"And while he said goodbye blew the wind in April"

The tune popped into my head as I sat in church tonight and a gale was banging the doors and rattling the windows.
Having it bouncing round my head was certainly a small share of the agony in the garden!

wishing everyone a prayerful Triduum and a joyous Easter

[organist]

It's certainly not great poetry docmattc. At the moment I have tunes from Stainer's Crucifixion in my head and I really want to be rid of them. Some Bach might just wash them out. Just like the week I spent in Bayreuth attending Wagner's Ring cycle and midweek I attended a Bach organ recital. It was like a cold shower in the midst of a hothouse sauna and very refreshing!
Here's a wierd one - what does it mean?
Lord, make me a mountain standing tall for you,
strong and free and holy, in everything I do.
Lord, make me a river of water pure and sweet.

[docmattc]

What's making me cringe most is that organist is posting at 3.34am. Since I stopped working overnight in a Swiss lead lined shed I'd forgotten such a time existed.

[Peter]

What's making me cringe most is that organist is posting at 3.34am. Since I stopped working overnight in a Swiss lead lined shed I'd forgotten such a time existed.

Yes, I'd wondered whether organist was going for the record early-bird post, after posting at 5.27 a week ago and 4.26 yesterday. However, does 3.34 count as getting up early or staying up late? Or is organist away at the moment and posting from a different time zone overseas?

To get back on topic, my pet hate hymn when I was at school was "Lord for tomorrow", which I was always surprised to see in the "General" section of the Westminster Hymnal rather than in "For the young": the recurring "just for today" seemed to me so childish and also so pointless, as it suggested that having been kept from sin today it was OK to be as wicked as you like tomorrow. The tune did nothing to endear me to it either - apologies to the fans of R R Terry on another thread!

Despite some pretty cringe-making stuff at the university chaplaincy in the early 1970s (for all its good intentions "Family of Man" springs to mind as well as the aforementioned "Lord of the dance"), "Lord for tomorrow" probably remained my pet hate hymn until three people got together to produce the truly awful "Colours of day". There the false rhyme of "again" with "friend" is particularly cringe-worthy, as is the relentless tune; the rest of it probably would be as well if only I could work out what on earth it was trying to say.

Imagine my delight when the organist at my father's church a few years ago selected both "Lord for tomorrow" and "Colours of day" at the same Mass!

[quaeritor]

. . . and what's that one with "when I fall on my face with my knees to the rising sun . . " - or have I got that wrong?

[Gwyn]

Quaeritor said

and what's that one with "when I fall on my face with my knees to the rising sun . .

Your niece shouldn't be in the Rising Sun, It's a very rough pub.

[VML]

Doesn't that one start, 'Let us break bread together on our knees' ? Snapping a crusty baguette...

[nazard]

We don't do that down here in Somerset, you get crumbs in the wellies...