In our now time-honoured Sunday tradition, we turn to music. This week in my new series Hymns from the Radio Dial, we get political with a call for social justice from Psalm 137. It is most likely that we all remember Rivers of Babylon as a late-70s song by German disco group Boney M. In fact, the song was written and recorded in 1972 by Brent Dowe and Trevor McNaughton of The Melodians (1965-73), a Jamaican group in Kingston, the birthplace of reggae.

Following on their first two albums dealing with adolescence (Boy) and spirituality (October), U2’s third studio album turned political in 1983 with War. Besides the album title, songs like “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day” issue their comment on the world at the time, when Bono said, “War seemed to be the motif for 1982. Everywhere you looked, from the Falklands to the Middle East and South Africa, there was war. By calling the album War we’re giving people a slap in the face and at the same time getting away from the cozy image a lot of people have of U2.”

When Roger Hodgson departed Supertramp in 1983, someone commented that the remaining group was reduced to being just “Tramp”. It was the end of an era for the band after releasing a number of very successful albums. Among them was the classic 1979 release, Breakfast in America. The album included four hit singles (”The Logical Song”, “Goodbye Stranger”, “Take the Long Way Home” and the title cut, “Breakfast in America”).

Following last week’s series introduction, Streams of White Light into Darkened Corners, We open the series in 1974 where Larry Norman’s introduction left off, and from the opposite angle. We begin our series of Hymns from the Radio Dial with a decidedly non-secular song that hit big on the pop charts. In some ways, perhaps this was the acme of the trend that Larry Norman described. In a significant way though, it was a milestone in the formation of what came to be called “contemporary Christian music,” something of which Norman himself was a pioneer. His introduction (last week) sets the stage onto which this particular song emerged.

I have in my record collection (yes, kids, it’s made of vinyl, and it plays on a turntable without any forward-backward interference so as to produce music instead of senseless garbled noises, thank you very much) a 1974 collector’s album by Larry Norman called Streams of White Light into Darkened Corners. I know you’ve all been waiting with baited breath to find out just what I might possibly replace my long-running Sunday hymn series with, and this is it. And I’m really looking forward to digging into it… after this week’s series introduction. Oddly enough, I had the idea for the series a couple of months back, and sat down to list some 50+ songs that fit the bill, and titled my list “Hymns from the Byways.” Then a few weeks later, I was thumbing through my record collection to find something nostalgic and landed on this forgotten LP. The idea is this — convinced that secular:sacred is most likely a false dichotomy, I’m compiling a list of songs which are (a) “Christian”-oriented but scored on the pop charts or (b) spiritual songs recorded by “secular” artists. I’m looking at that crossover space where we find spiritual truth on the radio. “Hymns from the Radio”? Not sure yet what to call the series, but don’t touch that dial.

This will be the penultimate entry in my series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth. This week’s feature has been called the greatest country song ever written, and illustrates how the refreshing of old hymns can create a new “standard” song for a new generation of worshippers — and, in fact, for several generations which follow them. In 1907, Ada R. Ha­ber­shon wrote the lyrics to “Will the circle be unbroken”, with music contributed by Charles H. Ga­br­iel. Her version of the hymn lyrics follow, and if you’re like me, you’ve possibly heard them before, at least not that you recall… though they do have a strange familiarity. A review of the refrain makes me think I’ve heard this version before, and a reading of the verses fills out a slightly stronger sense of the Christian hope that undergirds both versions. The overwhelming sense of (particularly the familiar) hymn is almost more akin to sentimentality than faith, but it touches the universal theme of loss, to which we can all relate on some level. The original version in particular remembers the times of youth before the loss of family members and other saints occurred.

Today for our series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth we turn to a familiar hymn, or song. It is one that is well-known in most Christian circles, but until I looked it up for this feature, I did not know who had written it. Its lyrics are simple and evoke an image of gospel crusades and altar calls… an image that is starting to call up mixed emotions for some of us. I find new insight into the lyrics by reviewing the life of its author.

It’s time to add another hymn to my collection, Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth. I didn’t really set out to find one that relates to Mother’s Day in any fashion, but if we stretch it we can say that the hymn is an invitation to dine, which is what a lot of families are doing with their mothers today. At least, that’s apparently what we discovered when we attempted to make reservations.

This week our addition to the series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth is a hymn written by Phil­ip Paul Bliss in 1875. Bliss was born Ju­ly 9, 1838 in Clear­field Coun­ty, Penn­syl­van­ia.

On the evening of December 28, 1876, Bliss said to his au­di­ence, “I may not pass this way again”; then he sang a so­lo titled “I’m Go­ing Home To­mor­row.” The next day, Bliss and his wife perished in a tra­gic train wreck caused by a bridge col­apse at Ash­ta­bu­la, Ohio. He actually sur­vived the in­i­tial im­pact, but went back in­to the flames in an un­suc­ces­sful at­tempt to res­cue his wife. The re­mains re­trieved from the Ash­ta­bu­la dis­as­ter were placed in a com­mon grave marked by a cen­o­taph in the Ash­ta­bu­la Cem­e­te­ry. On Ju­ly 17, 1877, a cen­o­taph in mem­o­ry of the Bliss­es was erect­ed in the cem­e­tery at Rome, Penn­syl­vania.

This week in my series Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth I am adding an older selection than the ones I’ve featured over the past few weeks, but not one of the old “theological” hymns. African-American spirituals evolved during the revivalism between 1740 and the 1800s. The earliest spirituals were inspired by African music even if the tunes were not far from those of hymns. Some of them, called “shouts,” were accompanied with dancing, hand clapping, and foot tapping. The image at right is a book of sheet music from 1937, published by Belmont Music Company of Chicago, containing 21 or 22 songs.

With this post, I’ve reached the one hundredth entry in my series, Then Sings My Soul: The Hymns of My Youth, which means I’ve been running the series for almost two years now. When I began, I hardly imagined that I would come up with so many hymns that featured someplace in my youth… and yet, here we are. I still have a few hymns sitting in the wings that I would like to include, after which I’ll be drawing the series to a close with what I consider to be perhaps the greatest hymn ever written. I know the series has been popular with a number of people who may be sorry to see it go, but I have begun to grow a little tired of it as it begins to be more and more difficult to come up with a hymn I recall but haven’t yet covered. I’m sure I will think of several more after I’ve concluded the series — isn’t that always the way? In the meantime, I’ve come up with a new concept for my regular Sunday posts so that I will be replacing it with a new long-running series that I hope will be at least as popular and which I would love to see generate some good conversation.