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How can you have a Hymn of the Week when the word for the week is silly?
“Don’t get me started!” you might say, and point to all kinds of clumsy or overstrained or ridiculous lyrics in contemporary hymns. “Loud boiling test tubes!” is one of my favorites. The author, whom I won’t name, really did mean well, attempting to have all the works of man praise God, but, for one thing, you don’t boil things in a test tube, and they aren’t loud. Good poetry really does have to be grounded in reality. Or I could go to the opening words of “Silence, Frenzied, Unclean Spirit!”, which are, ahem, “Silence, frenzied, unclean spirit!” Again, the author meant well, but the words are a twisted mouthful, and the use of “frenzied” as the first adjective here is a real stumbler. It doesn’t get much better as the verse goes on.
Clumsiness isn’t silliness, nor is stupidity, or creepiness, or heresy, or narcissism — no, I want something that’s not pretentious, that’s innocent in spirit, and if it might unwittingly raise a forgiving laugh. And I think I’ve got it: “Remember All the People,” otherwise known as “Far Off Lands,” by Percy Dearmer. Over summers in Canada, Debra and I often sing hymns, working our way through a collection of hymnals. When we first came upon this one, we burst out laughing! (And we were very glad we hadn’t first discovered in in church!) We’ve since become fond of it, for just this silly reason.
To clarify, Percy Dearmer was by no means a silly man. We owe to him a great debt of gratitude for his emphasis on beauty in worship, and for his work, with Ralph Vaughan Williams, in producing and editing the great English Hymnal, with Tunes, 1933, which involved his retrieval of many an old English Christmas carol about to fall into oblivion, and many folk melodies that had never been transcribed, and many liturgical chants and litanies from the medieval English tradition. And he wasn’t just an aesthete. He was energetically involved in political action for the poor and for laborers, as witness his running a canteen for them out of Westminster Abbey when he served as canon there — in charge of the music and the bread, not a bad combination.
It’s just that when Dearmer came to write poetry, it was hit or miss. Sometimes he’s all right; but sometimes he hits a sour note. I think here of the old Andy Griffith Show, and the lovable little popinjay deputy, Barney Fife, singing in the town choir, and nobody can hurt his feelings and tell him that he’s like a bluejay with a bad cold, but they’ve got to do something about it, so they station a baritone farmhand backstage with a microphone — you get the idea. So here we go with our hymn. Dearmer, himself an Anglican minister, wrote it for the missions. Nowadays, I guess, people would accuse him of being some sort of cultural imperialist, but just as he wanted to bring the word of God to the poor in England, and to preserve beloved carols and melodies that had escaped the attention of the well-heeled and well-educated, so too he wanted to bring the word of God to everyone all the world over. Some people bring food and medicine — and we have no problem with that; but the word of God is the ultimate in food and medicine.
Anyway, there are two very silly lines here that Dearmer wrote with complete lack of guile; but they are silly, both guileless and unintentionally ridiculous. Have you ever, at a Sunday service, sung a song that made you think of apes frolicking in the trees? This one will! Or have you sung a song that made you scratch your head and say, “Now, wait a second, what’s a camel doing in a rice paddy?” You will today, if you sing along with this hymn! But as I said, the laughter here is sympathetic and mild, and besides, what Dearmer prays for is good indeed. And the final stanza is just right.
We were not too surprised that there is no sung version of this hymn available online. You’ll see from the artwork above, that this hymn is now used (if at all) mainly for singing with children, and the more pity that, for us grownups, who have lost the ability to tolerate a little silliness now and again. The full lyrics — and they are both profound and childlike — are included in the video so you can sing along. If you do, AND if you chuckle, that’s just fine. For the serious message of the hymn still applies, for young and old, alike. — Debra
Remember all the people Who live in far off lands, In strange and lonely cities, Or roam the desert sands, Or farm the mountain pastures, Or till the endless plains Where children wade through rice-fields And watch the camel trains. Some work in sultry forests Where apes swing to and fro, Some fish in mighty rivers, Some hunt across the snow. Remember all God's children Who yet have never heard The truth that comes from Jesus, The glory of his word. God bless the men and women Who serve him oversea; God raise up more to help them To set the nations free, Till all the distant people In every foreign place Shall understand his kingdom And come into his grace.
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Silly and delightful in an unsophisticated way. I’m not sure I’d want to sing it at Mass but certainly it would be good for a hymn sing (do we Catholics have them?). I like the tune in the video. It’s lively and fun. And, more importantly, singable. Have you noticed how you can sing good hymn tunes without having heard them before or having the score in front of you? Yo can’t do that with what you get in most churches these days. And they wonder why nobody sings at Mass. it’s not that they can’t, it’s that the songs are un-singable. “Immaculate Mary” always raises the roof.
Not sure I'd call the words "silly"...........especially today, when there is such a radical disconnect between how peoples live around the world...some with every new technology, some barely into the 19th century. The words bring this into stark relief.
I would have loved to hear it sung---never even heard of the song before.
And...I must admit...when I read the title, my immediate thought was "Lonely People" by America...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBoHTTAe_50