I remeber one sounded like the theme from Flipper. "everyone loves the king of the sea, ever so kind and gental is he". Then there was one that sounded like this " miss lucie had a steamboat, the steamboat had a bell, miss lucie went to heaven, and the steamboat went to hell" something like that. I agree , most of the new songs suck! venting.
why did they have to butcher the kingdom melodies?
by purrpurr 63 Replies latest watchtower bible
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WTWizard
Someone ought to switch out the Kingdumb maladies and put a copy of 50 Cent The Massacre into the CD player in lieu of the Kingdumb maladies. It will sound a lot better.
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blondie
The old green song book had some nice tunes and was written in four part harmony
I remember that one too...one sister told me when she was young she got on the chair (she was 4) and sang out:
First Line: Rejoice, rejoice, for God and Christ are reigning Title: Rejoice, the kingdom has begun First Line: Rejoice, rejoice, for God and Christ are reigning Title: Rejoice, the kingdom has begun -
dozy
One of the reasons , I guess , was to change the terminology. A lot of the older expressions ( such as New World etc ) had to be removed.
One of my first wake-up moments was about 10 years ago staying in an apartment on holiday beside a Catholic church and hearing the congregation singing on a Sunday morning. They sang with such enthusiasm & gusto - it was really pleasant to listen to. Then as good JWs we went to the afternoon meeting in the local Kingdom Hall and I've never heard such insipid , unenthusiastic singing. It was even worse than our own Kingdom Hall ( which was usually pretty useless despite occasional Local Needs items trying to get the congregation to sing with a bit more conviction ).
I noted that the brother in front on me had his hand in his pocket when singing ( a pet hate of mine ) and then found it ironic when chatting to him later that he was the Presiding Overseer.
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tim hooper
Many of the old, more lively melodies had to be removed later on because of copyright issues. Some were just blatant plagiarism. I've chopped these 2 youtubes for you to compare. Beethoven would have been most unimpressed.
First the kingdom melody:
http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3427032
Now hear the original:
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Apognophos
Oh, wow, I never heard that before, tim hooper.
Now I'm embarrassed by the low-brow contrast in mentioning the Kingdom Melody that initially sounded like "The Merry Go Round Broke Down", AKA "the Looney Tunes song". I love this TubeChop thing, let's try it out:
Kingdom Melody "Meeting in Unity": http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3427217
Merry Go Round: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/3427229
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DATA-DOG
What group sang," Rejoice! Rejoice!! We have no choice!"?? That sounds like dubs. They have no choice except to paint on a smile as the WTBTS drains their essence for its own immortality.
DD
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Oubliette
Ironically, the song Walking in Integrity, is a complete rip-off of the jazz standard, Stella by Starlight.
It's a clear case of plagiarism, pure and simple.
Check out the last 8 bars, which is the hook of the song: http://www.saxuet.qc.ca/TheSaxyPage/Realbook%20C/Stella_By_Starlight.jpg
Melodic embellishments aside, it's the chorus for "Walking in Integrity" with a slightly different ending. It's particularly ironic since "Stella" was a song based on Victor Young's score for "The Uninvited," a creepy little ghost story (1944) starring Ray Milland and Ruth Hussey. (It's actually a great movie if you like those sorts of things).
For those of us that are musically literate, here are a few more details of my analysis: Personally, I like the harmonization for "Stella" better. The last 8 bars uses a series of ii-V chords starting on an Emi7b5 in a circle of 5ths progression which end on the tonic Bb.
In the WTBTS's song book, the progression is essentially the same except it starts on Bb instead of the Emi7b5. The fact that the remaining 7 bars of the harmonization are more or less the same is obscured by the fact that some chords are improperly identified in the WT songbook, and one has a substitution.
- Bar 2 is harmonized as C#dim rather than an A7b9, which is the identical harmony if you omit the root of the A chord. This is of course a legit substitution, but destroys the circle of 5ths root movement in the original
- Bar 3 is identified as a combination Bb/D - Fm/Ab which is consistent with the Dmi7b5 in the original
- Bar 5 is identified as a Ebm/C. An Eb minor chord with a C in the bass is the same as a Cmi7b5, which would be the correct way to label that harmony
- Bar 6 overly complicates things by incorrectly labeling a suspension in the inner voices as Ebm/F. It would be simpler and more accurate to go with the F7b9 as in the original.
(Note that the above analysis is of the chorus of Walking in Integrity, which is the last 8 measures of the song. The bar numbers are relative to that starting point.)
"Integrity" was actually the first song I ever learned when I started "studying" with JWs.
It's ironic to find out it was inspired by a song written for a ghost story.
But as for me, determined I shall be, to walk eternally ... with Stella by Starlight!
Another irony is the title! There's not much integrity in plagiarism. And how did Holy Spirit let a stolen song about a ghost in the house?
You can hear Ella sing Stella here. In particular, listen at 1:07 - 1:25 and compare that to the chorus for Walking In Integrity:
Here you can hear, ol' Blue Eyes on the same tune:
Listen from 1:17 - 1:38"
Also, notice the similarity of the rhyme scheme of the lyrics. In the original, there are two rhymes on a hard "E" sound. In WIT, it's bumped up to the end of every phrase.
- SBS: My heart and I aGREE, she's everything on earth to ME (Sinatra version referenced above)
- WIT: But as for ME determined I shall BEto walk eternalLY in my integriTY
Again, the great irony of the song is the lack of integrity in its authorship.
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Oubliette
Correction to my above post:
Towards the end, I meant to write, "In the original, there are two rhymes on a long 'E' sound," not a "hard" sound. I tried to fix it but had exceeded the time limit!
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purrpurr
Wow reading these posts just wow! These are songs that I grew up with and loved! They'd moved me to tears and when sung by a assembly hall full of jw's I used to think I felt the holy spirit amongst us!
And now that illusion is all crumbling...
