Sunday, January 16, 2011

songs and text

so, what do you do when there is a song with perfect *text* that matches the proper antiphon...but it sounds like either something right off Broadway, or else a schmaltzy love song? I've looking at "Lord When You Came to the Seashore" as a substitute for the antiphons for this upcoming Sunday having to do with "Follow me, I will make you fishers of men." ok, well, looking at it again I guess the text doesn't match as well as I thought it did...but still, there's other times that this occurs! So where's the line? Should all songs that are musically inappropriate be excluded from the liturgy, even if they could substitute for a proper antiphon where nothing else can?

3 comments:

Aaron said...

1) why substitute the antiphon??
2) personally, I would place appropriateness of music as higher in importance, only for the fact that it is usually more imprinted in people's memories after the service is over.
3) what is the meter of the "perfect" text substitute? If it is a standard meter, try using a decent hymn tune with the same meter.

Mara Joy said...

good question... I've written about these before, so rather than trying to briefly perfectly answer your question, here's a bulletin article I wrote on this subject:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/119JI92Zh-dlDnjkYlZMqUDf3QQN3H0O56hGhdsD5hHQ/edit?hl=en&authkey=CPyn2p4M

and here's a follow-up article that I wrote two years later:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AXvjXx_mTDmrZHptczh2Nl81Mmc5Zzc4eGQ4&hl=en

(I think they both may have been edited slightly before publishing, so don't hold anything I say in them against me! It's not technically public info! :-0 )

Unknown said...

Sing it in Spanish. That will make everyone happy. Junto'a Ti... Buscare otro mar!