Immortal Invisible and When A Knight Won His Spurs

[TheTecknician]

Fun fact, just in case you didn't know. The words to these hymns can be transposed to each other's tune. Both are in 3/4 time.

Similarly with Amazing Grace and I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, although these two have different time signatures.

That's all!

Funnily enough, after not having heard it in years (but having read and commented on this thread last night), I ended up singing 'The King of Love My Shepherd Is' in church this morning!! Spooky or what?! 😂

We sang a 'What a friend we have in Jesus' in church today - and I found it really difficult not to sing the words that I usually associate with the tune 🤣.
Are you poor, forlorn, and hungry?
Are there lots of things you lack?
Is your life made up of misery?
Then dump the bosses off your back
Are your clothes all patched and tattered?
Are you living in a shack?
Would you have your troubles scattered?
Then dump the bosses off your back

Lyngham is much the best tune for 'Oh for a Thousand Tongues' - if you are a tenor.
And in our church choir we always sing While Shepherds' watched to Cranbrook (On Ilkley Moor).

A choir I used to be in used to sing 'While Shepherds Watched...' to a different tune every year. Usually ones used in different countries, but one of the years it was On Ilkley Moor bar Tat. There are many different tunes in use around the World.

When I was organising my mum's funeral we included The Lord's My Shepherd in the service and there were three possible tunes we could have used for it that I knew of, there are probably more. It's so interesting, how different tunes are used for the same hymn and why.

Thanks for this lovely thread OP, I now plan to go and listen to lots of the hymns mentioned already.

I've been on YouTube this evening listening to some favourites. As well as Lord of all Hopefulness, there's Dear Lord and Father of Mankind and I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say.

I think one can find the words and music of hymns uplifting even if one doesn't have any particular beliefs, especially if sung by a trained cathedral choir.

Another hardcore atheist who loves a good hymn here. Dear Lord and Father of Mankind is a definite favourite and I recently found a version by The Divine Comedy / Neil Hannon which is fabulous if you like that sort of thing (which I do).

I remember my mum being very cross that I was humming the German national anthem in the early 1960's (so not that long after the war) when I was actually singing 'Glorious things of thee are spoken'.

It's by Haydn - who was Austrian - so the tune, and the hymn, which was written in the 18th century, have been around much longer than Germany has existed as a nation.

Actually - wouldn't "When a knight won his spurs" make a fabulous English national anthem?

Not for an Arsenal fan 😂😂

It's got to be better than the one we've got which is so dull.

Why can't we have I Vow to Thee My Country as our national anthem?

...which can also be sung to the tune of We Plough the Fields and Scatter

"We blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree/And wither and perish but nought changeth Thee."

Real poetry, and I am always quoting it to my students, to their slight bemusement, though singing this one is hard for me now because I chose it as one of my dad's funeral hymns. It's especially good in A flat major though seems to have gone to G in some hymn books.

This has been an eye-opener!

Thank you so much @guinnessguzzler for the Neil Hannon rec... just listened and it's fantastic!

You're very welcome @LetMeJustCheckMyCitrusPocket and delighted to hear it. I believe his Dad was a minister in Northern Ireland so he presumably would have grown up with lots of religious music.

Brilliant! It’s a perfect school hymn, the words bring a tear to my eye

When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand,
For God and for valour he rode through the land.

No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.

Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness, the power of the truth.

Another school cracker! As is For Those In Peril on the Sea and Glad That I Live Am I. Takes me right back to the big hall in my Primary School with its polished floor and a female teacher playing the piano accompaniment

I love a hymn that can be belted out, and that tune has to be one of the best. The church I went to as a child sang 'Zion's king shall reign victorious' to that tune.

I'm not Christian but I'd say the hymns that have a bit of life and vigour about them are more appealing. There was one particularly dull and dreary number at my primary school; the first line was 'Holy, holy, holy, holy'. No idea what it was called but rubbish nonetheless.

"Early in the morning Our song shall rise to thee. Hoiy holy holy Merciful and mighty God in three persons, Blessed Trinity." That one? It is a bit dreary, I suppose because there's no way it can be played in a fast or lively manner.

I always quite liked "Holy, holy, holy, Early in the morning Our song shall rise to thee."
It's measured but I used to like singing it at school.

And There is a green hill far away!

There’s some wonderful choices and alternate tunes on this thread! I wish I knew how to put it somewhere I’ll find it when I need it!

Jerusalem the Golden was a banger that no one at my current church knows. Hymn familiarity is a very unpredictable thing!