Those Wonderful Kingdom Songs (page 5)

Quendi

The song you remember about Jepthah, 3rdgen, was re-titled and re-worded. The magenta and brown songbooks called it “Follow the Warrior King”. Some of the lyrics were:

“Forward go! Fearlessly go! As an army we will go forth to fight the wicked foe!

“Follow the Warrior King who will never fail, following him we shall prevail!”

I rather liked that one as well. I remember being at an assembly where a recording of that song was played featuring Witnesses from Papua New Guinea singing it in their native tongue. What made their performance especially powerful was that they did so a capella!

Quendi

Sulla

"Hey There All You Thirsty Ones!" I seem to to remember a pretty good build up to the refrain: "See, His kingdom has been born!" etc. Then the "hey there" part, which seemed to pull back some, since you cant expect a congregation to belt out the verse the way it should be.

Still remember a very large percentage of those songs, lo these many years later.

PaintedToeNail

cobaltcupcake-I believe the horrid Lazarus lay sleeping in a cold stone grave was song #53 in the magenta song book. I was fascinated with it as a little kid, but then again, I was always reading about mummys and human sacrafices and other macabre subjects.

Q uendi-seeing as how you seem to be a JW music historian, wasn't the song Forward You Witnesses written by JW's who just got out of the concentration camps in Germany?

Quendi

You flatter me, PaintedToeNail, with your praise, but I’m no music historian. I actually know next to nothing about the various songs and I have no idea about the origins of “Forward You Witnesses!” It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that it had been composed by a concentration camp survivor.

It is a great shame that the WTS has insisted on anonymity on the part of its many contributors. I suppose the real reason behind that policy was Nathan Knorr’s desire to put as much distance between the organization and the memory of “Judge” Rutherford as possible. Rutherford’s and Russell’s names were placed on the publications they authored and Knorr was the one who ended that practice. Considering Rutherford’s, shall we say “colorful life”, that is completely understandable.

Quendi

00DAD

Quendi: ... many people did not appreciate the kingdom songs.

Um, that's because so many of them are BAD!

Thanks for starting this thread Quendi.

The dumbest lyric was the one about the molested bees. Ackkk, such crap!

Oh, yeah, and don't those molested bees need to be beat off?

"Around me swarms the Devil's crowd Like bees that were molested.
But I can ever beat them off, Beneath divine protection."

Who wrote this shit? Pedophile bee-keepers?

I didn't see that anyone commented on the tune that had the same melody to "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" or the one that was a slowed down version of the Looney Tunes Merry Melody.

Quendi, 9/8 meter is triple compound meter. It's 3/4 time like a waltz but with each beat subdivided into 3 parts (a triplet) instead of 2. Someone commented on a song in 5/4. I don't remember that one, must've been before my time. But the famous Lalo Schifrin theme for Mission Impossible is in 5. Very cool.

Most, but not all, of the songs are/were written by amateur musicians. This is not necessarily a bad thing. But the lyrics in so many of the tunes are just dreadful propaganda-fests of indoctrination by jingles.

FACT: JWN member DNCall now has MORE songs in the current songbook as an apostate than he did when he was an elder in good-standing.

What a messed up religion.

00DAD

BTW, I'm a professional musician and have been since I've been old enough to make a living playing/writing and making music.

When I started "studying" with the JWs in the early 80's the brother I was studying with gave me a songbook. It was the old lilac colored one. At this point I had never actually heard any of these songs yet as I had not attended any meetings.

I was thumbing through the songbook and "Walking in Integrity" caught my eye. So I recorded a 4-part arrangment with three guitars and a bass. Since I didn't "know how it was supposed to go" I let the natural flow of the music guide me. I thought it sounded pretty cool it an "old-timey" jazzy way.

I proudly played my results for the brother at our next study. He chastised me for playing it "wrong". My recording was up-tempo and energetic, not the more pedestrian tempo he was used to. Of course as he was a poolman he was an expert on the subject and I (a trained musician for 14 years at that point) was wrong.

Why didn't I see that huge red flag waving vigorously in front of me and do the sensible thing and run the other way!!!!!

00DAD

d

I remeber this one very well.

Quendi

Thanks, 00DAD, for your thoughts. I started this thread with you in mind and am glad to read your thoughts. You’re right that most of the kingdom songs were just god-awful and it always amazed me when I heard other Witnesses praise them. The lyrics were rotten and the music was nothing to write home about either.

Your experience about re-writing one of the melodies is so typical of how the organization operates and twists the thinking of its members. Anonymity is enforced so that the organization, not the individual, gets honored and recognized. Changes of any kind are resisted because the organization insists on a top-down style of management. The results, to paraphrase Isaac Asimov, are a receding of initiative, a damning of curiosity and a freezing of caste.

The arts and sciences are not welcome. Those with any talent in these areas are constantly frustrated by the organization’s insistence that pursuit and development of these abilities is satanic in origin because only the organization’s vision of “full time service” is an acceptable path for Witnesses. No wonder so many who have any kind of free spirit take their leave.

Quendi

00DAD

Quendi, your comments on the society's oppressive and suffocating "management style" are right on.

And it's so ridiculous. There are so many talented and gifted people in the organization. I often think of what a very different thing JW could be if they lived the lifestyle they publicly preach.

BTW, I didn't change a single thing in my recording of "Walking in Integrity" except the tempo. As mentioned I'd never heard it when I recorded it. I just liked the melody and the old, four-part style writing in the purple/lilac song book.

I guess my brisk walk of integrity somehow offended the artistic sensibilities of the aforementioned brother. He was a full-time pioneer and no doubt preferred a more pedestrian pace for his walk!

00DAD

mamochan13

Quendi, OOdad, you are so right about talent and the arts having no place among JWs. When I was DF'd I was working nights as a professional musician (with my JW siblings, no less). One of the elders said that no one could work in that job and still remain a faithful dub because of the environment. I replied that I could. He said, "well, I couldn't." Of course, he was a talentless old fart. Jealous, probably, too.

I have to say, though, that in my travels I came across some exceptions. In Mexico I went to a concert by a group of professional jazz musicians who were JWs and who played a couple of the kingdom songs with unique arrangements. In Hollywood, CA, I visited a congregation where the majority worked as professional musicians or artists of some type.

But for the most part, all my life I came up against opposition for my work as a musician.

Just remembered one of the neatest public talks I ever heard. It was given by a former opera singer elder. He used five songs from the songbook to illustrate his points, getting the whole congregation to sing them each time. He made us really think about the meaning of the lyrics and the role of music in the Bible, i.e. he described King David as an excellent musician. I was the pianist at the time, and I recall how everyone rolled their eyes when he introduced the next song and invited them to stand and sing.

Those Wonderful Kingdom Songs

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