Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Originally published in Hymns for the Nativity of our Lord in 1744, this serves as an invocation, an opening invitation to the Holy Spirit to come and convert our hearts. When performing in churches I often open with this piece. Brother Charles can't help but work in sanctification to his Advent hymn: "From our fears and sins release us, let us find our rest in thee." This always puts me in mind of St. Augustine's prayer to God at the start of his Confessions: “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
The denomi-national anthem of Methodism, it is traditionally the first hymn in Methodist hymnals since John Wesley's great Collection of 1780. The original poem does begin with the doxology (praise) stanza I begin with. The chorus here in my version is actually the seventh stanza of the poem, wishing for a thousand languages with which to praise the Divinity. Charles wrote this to commemorate the one-year anniversary of his conversion experience in 1738. You can read his own account of that experience from his journal. Just scroll down to May 21.
Love Divine
This might be my favorite hymn. The version here is one of the oldest of these reimaginings and one I perform the most. It's also the only hymn for which I wrote an original chorus. (I hadn't thought of using one of Wesley's stanzas itself as a chorus.) "Take away our bent to sinning" is one of my favorite lines from any hymn and underscores the belief that God can heal our sinful nature. "Bent," I learned late in life, was John's editorial choice. Charles's original was a bit stronger, as we'll explore below.
Living Room Hymn Sing
Sing along! My family and friends are accompanied on an upright Grinnell piano originally from the Baltic, Michigan Methodist Episcopal church. My wife's grandma was pianist there and when the church closed, it came into our family where it now resides in our (you guessed it) living room. It's the piano I write at, and on which all our children learned to play.
Brother Charles
The only original song on the album, I consider it one of my best. In secular settings I generally don't talk about who the people in the song are. (Do you know who Susannah is?) However, I hope the overall message about not treasuring what you've been given comes through. In this writer's mind each item (stopwatch, records, etc.) also stands for something; but I don't want to rob you here of the ability to have them mean for you what you would have them mean.
Hymn Tune BEECHER
This is the tune we generally most associate with "Love Divine." Patrick Booth is an eminent jazz saxophonist and composer based in Marquette, MI (and a truly wonderful soul). I just love what he does on this track. Inviting him to interpret this familiar tune for you is one of the best decisions I made on this whole album. You can discover his music at patrickbooth.bandcamp.com.
O Come and Dwell in Me
I arranged this one for myself, for morning devotional times a capella. Thus, its subdued mood and fairly low pitch. They don't get more entire santification-y than this, asking God to come live in you, bringing liberty from fear and sin. May it be so, in me and you too, dear reader.
I Want a Principle Within
This hymn is so hard-core, I love it. It is so not from the laid-back, dare I say, low-commitment Mainline zeitgeist of our own era: "Give me to feel an idle thought as actual wickedness and mourn for the minutest fault in exquisite distress" [italics added]. And not that it embodies how I myself actually do life, but I like encountering things from other times and worldviews. In the current United Methodist hymnal this raging poem is pared with a most insipid tune, so I was very happy to come up with a more serious setting.
Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
Here is an earlier setting of "Love Divine." Since I had taken liberties with the cut earlier on the album (adding an original chorus etc.), I went back to Charles's original text before John edited it in 1779. Rather than John's "take away our bent to sinning," Charles originally implored God to take away our power of sinning. John (and others) felt this too extreme, eliminating free will. Other editors have made other alterations. Here it is on the album with the only change being the repetition of the hymn's first two lines at the end of every stanza, thus serving as the last thought expressed: "Joy of heaven to earth come down."
Much has been made over the years about the fact that there is no comma after "heaven" in Charles Wesley's original. "Joy of heaven to earth come down" (no comma) is a description of Jesus: the joy of heaven already having come down to earth at the Nativity. John added a comma ("Joy of heaven, to earth come down"). Many hymnals retain the comma, which makes it seem more a request, now asking the Joy of heaven to come back to earth and impart that second rest to us. I'll keep my preference to myself, and you can sing it (or think along with me as I sing it) however you like.
Much has been made over the years about the fact that there is no comma after "heaven" in Charles Wesley's original. "Joy of heaven to earth come down" (no comma) is a description of Jesus: the joy of heaven already having come down to earth at the Nativity. John added a comma ("Joy of heaven, to earth come down"). Many hymnals retain the comma, which makes it seem more a request, now asking the Joy of heaven to come back to earth and impart that second rest to us. I'll keep my preference to myself, and you can sing it (or think along with me as I sing it) however you like.
Thy Nature, Gracious Lord, Impart
The title says it all, as far as asking the Holy Spirit for sanctification, doesn't it? Desiring God's very nature for our own? If it didn't, the last two lines of the stanza I've appropriated as the chorus sure does: "Write thy new name upon my heart, thy new, best name of love!"
Throughout the chorus the accompaniment descends, illustrating (as elsewhere on the album) the downward motion of God's Spirit from above. The words "thy new best name of love" sound on a repeated note: stability and solidity after all that downward motion. This is the most recent musical arrangement on the album, and in fact it's why there's an album at all. As I was discerning the music for it, it dawned on me that this was in the same key as the first song ("Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus") and uses some similar harmonies at the end of the chorus. After playing this setting ("Thy Nature") early on in our living room, I happened to add the closing bars of the first song ("Let us find our rest in thee"). It really worked. Instantly it came to me that doing so would bring a wonderful completion to an album of these new settings of Charles Wesley's verse. I hope it is a blessing to you.
Throughout the chorus the accompaniment descends, illustrating (as elsewhere on the album) the downward motion of God's Spirit from above. The words "thy new best name of love" sound on a repeated note: stability and solidity after all that downward motion. This is the most recent musical arrangement on the album, and in fact it's why there's an album at all. As I was discerning the music for it, it dawned on me that this was in the same key as the first song ("Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus") and uses some similar harmonies at the end of the chorus. After playing this setting ("Thy Nature") early on in our living room, I happened to add the closing bars of the first song ("Let us find our rest in thee"). It really worked. Instantly it came to me that doing so would bring a wonderful completion to an album of these new settings of Charles Wesley's verse. I hope it is a blessing to you.
