Those Wonderful Kingdom Songs

Quendi

This thread was inspired by our friend 00DAD and a comment he made elsewhere about a particular “kingdom song.” So I want to tip my hat to him at the start. I wanted to talk about the songbooks Jehovah’s Witnesses have used down through the years. I came in with the old lilac-colored one and moved on to its two successors. I wasn’t a fan of the “kingdom melodies” either as choral pieces or instrumental ones because I thought most of them were badly composed. However, there were a few songs which I did like.

My favorites were “Bless Jehovah”, although I’m not sure of the exact wording of the title. It was Song #1 in the songbook which preceded the current one. My other favorite was “The Power of Kindness”. The first song always stirred feelings of love and affection for God in me. The second had lyrics which spoke directly to me because I really believe that kindness is very powerful and often given no place in today’s society.

So what do the rest of you think about the kingdom songs/melodies? Were there any you liked, or did you believe all of them were insipid and worthless? Inquiring minds want to know.

Quendi

fakesmile

fun question. i was born in so that is all i heard from 2-10 yrs old. ugh. true story, i was changing the oil in my moms car about a month ago and when i turned the key on it was a kingdom melody cd. i honestly thought i would lose my lunch. what horrid composition and what homeschool dropout wrote the lyrics?

keyser soze

My favorite kingdom melody was the one that made reference to bees being molested.

perfect1

Let everything living thing

Leap for joy

(leap for joy)

tootired2care

I don't recall the song number or title, but I used to like the song that had: "Kiss the Son lest god be angry and you perish in the way." That song had some punch to it. The recent redeux of it in the lastest songbox was a total disaster! They changed the tempo and words to "bless the son" or "obey the son and be blessed" what kind of wimpy chicken sh1t is that? The new songbook all in all is pretty terrible stuff, there was only a couple of decent ones, that were new ones and no re-do's.

ShirleyW

Am I the only old fart here who remembers the green songbook? The one before the magenta colored one that came out in the mid 60's?

Songs from the green songbook that made to the magenta one were: Take Side with Jehovah, Dedication, few others I can't think of the title now. I remember the song that was on the first page of the green book was "Hail Him", that was like a song from an old-fashioned church revivial, it woke you up, which is probably why they refrained from using it very much.

BTW in the magenta book, #10 that Hawaiian song, is it still around, what about From House to House and Keep your Eyes on the Prize?

Farkel

I played the piano at the KH for several decades, so I was familiar with all of them.

The hauntingly beautiful melody and lyrics of "From House to House" was especially beautiful. (Just kidding.)

There are 3 that I remember which were better than all the rest, which means they were mediocre. "Forward You Witnesses" had a nice modulation from a minor to a major key. The "Dedication" song which was always played at baptisms was nice. The other one which I cannot remember by name was good because the melody was directly from Beethoven's Appasionata Piano Sonata. That was one of those songs which was dropped in the next songbook because it wasn't "Theocratic", i.e. that nasty old worldly loser who couldn't write a good song if his life depended upon it named Beethoven wrote it!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Those three songs were in the old green songbook, whose horrible melodies and lyrics were replaced in the pink hard-cover songbook with even more horrible lyrics and melodies.

Farkel

nuthouse escapee

Shirley W & Farkel, I remember the old green songbook. I noticed later on that a lot of the songs sounded like church songs. There was one song that had the line.....our calls for succor he quickly supplies. As a kid I thought it said.....our calls for suckers he quickly supplies. Couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting any lollipops. lol Leslie

Nika Bee

I grew up with the brown songbook. I don't remember a lot of the lyrics though, because I played violin and viola at the meetings as soon as I was old enough. In our best times we had a pretty big "orchestra": 2 celli, 4 violins, 1 viola, 3 flutes, 1 piano, 1 bass, 2 guitars.

As I had the most experience and musical training, the other musicians suggested that I would take the lead, count at the beginning and hold the group together. But of course as I am a girl, this was not possible.

There were some songs that I really liked, where you could put your soul in the melody. Some were just really awkward. Some would have been nice, if one would be allowed to play them differently - slower or faster - but of course with the singing this was not an option. When I was bored during the meetings, I used to imgine the melody and voices of the next song in my head, and imagined different alterations that I wanted to try out.

Joe Grundy

This is where dubs miss out.

I am an atheist, but I love this hymn: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=b5mqR-ehY9s

(ETA: and this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NOVcefEYU)

Those Wonderful Kingdom Songs

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