New Year's Eve Partiers Sing Let Youth Praise Him and Old Blue Psalter Songs
The eight of us sat around the table, our chili bowls empty, the salads gone, but still sipping wine as we waited for the old year to disappear. Someone mentioned favorite old hymns, so I whipped out the eight copies of the Old Blue Psalter we keep on the bottom shelf of a china closet, passed them around and our guests began calling out their favorites—most of them songs that are not found in the Gray Psalter (the one that helped kill psalm singing). We sang some of the psalms and hymns from Old Blue until someone suggested “Peace Be Still.” But, of course, that’s not in the Blue Psalter. It’s in the Let Youth Praise Him book.
Now, if you are not familiar with the Let Youth Praise Him, it is probably because you are under sixty or over seventy-five or did not go to a CSI Christian School, for the LYPH was the songbook in Christian schools between 1950 and 1965. But if you are in that age-bracket and went to Christian school, you will probably be a little jealous of what ensued after the mention of “Peace Be Still”—a wildly enthusiastic sing-along of one old favorite after another.
Some of them were sweet little songs for little children like this one:
Dropping, dropping falls the rain, from the sky,
Gazing through the window pane, we wonder why
Everywhere, flowers fair, shed their fragrance on the air,
Every day, praising God, for his care.
But of course this sweet little song lightly carries in its lyrics that most weighty concept we call the providence of God. And this one invites us to spend our lives spreading joy and goodness:
Give said the little stream, give away, give away,
Give said the little stream as it hurried on its way.
I’m small I know but where ever I go
The fields grow greener still.
Singing, singing all the day, give away oh give away.
Singing, singing all the day, give oh give away.
There are over 150 songs in this book, yet most of us, it seemed, remembered best the same ten or fifteen. The two we sang most enthusiastically (wildly, really, and perhaps the wine contributed to that) were “Peace Be Still” and “Then Jesus Came.” It is clear why we loved them. They are a couple of the most dramatic songs in Christian hymnody—both the words and the music—the kind of songs that kids of any generation would beg to sing. I can’t give you the music, but here’s verse one of “Peace Be Still”:
Master the tempest is raging! The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness, No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest though not that we perish? How canst thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening A grave in the angry deep.
Refrain:
“The winds and the waves shall obey My will. Peace, be still, peace be still.
(And here begins the amazing crescendo as we climb up the scale) Whether the wrath of the of the stormed-tossed sea,
Or demons or men or whatever it be, No water can swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean
and earth and skies; (And now, slowly and almost pianissimo)They all shall sweetly obey My will; Peace be still! Peace be still! They all shall sweetly obey My will, peace, peace be still.”
It was a great song to sing as a 10-year-old, and it is still a kick to sing it at 69.
What strikes me as most profound about our response to the LYPH songs is that they had attached themselves to the very core of our being. Here we were, all of us 60 or older, from eight different Christian schools and in an instant we were transformed into sixth graders in Mrs. Hoogwerf’s classroom, absolutely delighted to be singing these songs. Most of us had not thought of or sung these songs for many, many years. Yet we knew the words. We knew the tunes. We knew when to crescendo and when to diminuendo (if that’s a verb). Nobody forced us to memorize them—we learned them without trying because we loved to sing them. And I believe that a good bit of the theology contained in these songs (“Everyday praising God for his care.”) must have caught in some of the good soil of our subconscious and become part of us.
Judging by our joyous nostalgia on New Year’s Eve, I might even offer a bit of educational advice: Christian schools should make the creation and use of a school hymnal a high priority in their educational endeavors. And they might just start with a few of these old chestnuts from the Let Youth Praise Him.
Now, if you are not familiar with the Let Youth Praise Him, it is probably because you are under sixty or over seventy-five or did not go to a CSI Christian School, for the LYPH was the songbook in Christian schools between 1950 and 1965. But if you are in that age-bracket and went to Christian school, you will probably be a little jealous of what ensued after the mention of “Peace Be Still”—a wildly enthusiastic sing-along of one old favorite after another.
Some of them were sweet little songs for little children like this one:
Dropping, dropping falls the rain, from the sky,
Gazing through the window pane, we wonder why
Everywhere, flowers fair, shed their fragrance on the air,
Every day, praising God, for his care.
But of course this sweet little song lightly carries in its lyrics that most weighty concept we call the providence of God. And this one invites us to spend our lives spreading joy and goodness:
Give said the little stream, give away, give away,
Give said the little stream as it hurried on its way.
I’m small I know but where ever I go
The fields grow greener still.
Singing, singing all the day, give away oh give away.
Singing, singing all the day, give oh give away.
There are over 150 songs in this book, yet most of us, it seemed, remembered best the same ten or fifteen. The two we sang most enthusiastically (wildly, really, and perhaps the wine contributed to that) were “Peace Be Still” and “Then Jesus Came.” It is clear why we loved them. They are a couple of the most dramatic songs in Christian hymnody—both the words and the music—the kind of songs that kids of any generation would beg to sing. I can’t give you the music, but here’s verse one of “Peace Be Still”:
Master the tempest is raging! The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness, No shelter or help is nigh;
Carest though not that we perish? How canst thou lie asleep,
When each moment so madly is threatening A grave in the angry deep.
Refrain:
“The winds and the waves shall obey My will. Peace, be still, peace be still.
(And here begins the amazing crescendo as we climb up the scale) Whether the wrath of the of the stormed-tossed sea,
Or demons or men or whatever it be, No water can swallow the ship where lies the Master of ocean
and earth and skies; (And now, slowly and almost pianissimo)They all shall sweetly obey My will; Peace be still! Peace be still! They all shall sweetly obey My will, peace, peace be still.”
It was a great song to sing as a 10-year-old, and it is still a kick to sing it at 69.
What strikes me as most profound about our response to the LYPH songs is that they had attached themselves to the very core of our being. Here we were, all of us 60 or older, from eight different Christian schools and in an instant we were transformed into sixth graders in Mrs. Hoogwerf’s classroom, absolutely delighted to be singing these songs. Most of us had not thought of or sung these songs for many, many years. Yet we knew the words. We knew the tunes. We knew when to crescendo and when to diminuendo (if that’s a verb). Nobody forced us to memorize them—we learned them without trying because we loved to sing them. And I believe that a good bit of the theology contained in these songs (“Everyday praising God for his care.”) must have caught in some of the good soil of our subconscious and become part of us.
Judging by our joyous nostalgia on New Year’s Eve, I might even offer a bit of educational advice: Christian schools should make the creation and use of a school hymnal a high priority in their educational endeavors. And they might just start with a few of these old chestnuts from the Let Youth Praise Him.
'yo Dave,
ReplyDeleteRecalling with you(and singing)the phrases from Let Youth Praise Him, a steady stream of eighth notes ("pum-pum-pum-pum-pum-pahdum-pum-pum/ Whether the wrath of the of the stormed-tossed sea"; next phrase, same tempo, half-step higher,"Or demons, or men or . . ."; and repeated, another half step up, crescendo, "No water can swallow the ship", Man! that gives me shivers, yet again. Resolving to the singsong phrases sweetly sung by a roomful of little kid soprano voices,"They all shall sweetly obey My will, peace. . . ." - You are so right, as dramatic a musical moment as I've experienced. More fun than, "They Plow the Fields and Scatter." (I think that song's in there.) Thanks for hauling out the "redbook" and recalling so well.
Jeri Schelhaas remarked to me when we were singing at one of our HS class reunions, "Christian school kids can sing." Amen, and amen to your advice about a singable kids, hymnbook. In our case, at ECES, we were helped along by our first grade teacher, whom you recall as well as I do,the lovely Angeline Vant Hul's wonderful piano playing, who got 25-30 kids to sing like crazy early on cold mornings with her back turned. (Dennis Fey broke the musical spell once, I remember, when called upon for a song title, said,"I know who your boyfriend is.")
Happy New Year! John R