Meridian Magazine :: Articles : Hymns about Joseph Smith

Hymns about Joseph Smith
By Orson Scott

We have an ambiguous situation regarding Joseph Smith. On the one hand, he is the founder of the modern Church, and his martyrdom sealed his testimony. We cannot forget him and cannot overvalue his contribution to our knowledge of God and God’s will for us.

On the other hand, we are not comfortable singing hymns that praise anyone but members of the Godhead. We have no hymns about Moses or Abraham, and while Nephi rates a mention, we would not want anyone to get the impression, attending one of our meetings and hearing us sing a hymn, that we think of Joseph Smith or any other prophet on the same level as the Savior.

And yet, as we come up on the bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s birth, we find only two hymns about Joseph Smith among those we regularly sing in church. “Oh How Lovely Was the Morning” retells the story of the Prophet’s first vision; “Praise to the Man” is an emotional response to his death.

Neither hymn is fully satisfactory — especially musically. “Oh How Lovely” is hard to sing: Lots of words that are sung across several notes; wide jumps; a wide range that tests the abilities of many untrained singers.

Also, the details that are added to the story — bees humming? sweet birds singing? — must have felt poetic to the writer of the hymn, but it’s wasted verbiage as far as the purposes of hymnody are concerned. If the day of the First Vision had been cloudy or if gnats had swarmed around his head as Joseph walked into the grove, would that have any bearing whatsoever on the events that happened there? Would we feel any need to sing about the grey day or the annoying gnats?

“Praise to the Man” is musically problematic for other reasons. Its martial tone, the thinness of its harmonies, the relentless drive, make it “fun” to sing, but not musically fulfilling. It’s no accident that this tune is the one used to help seminary students memorize the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is suited for doggerel.

And the words, while heartfelt ... are they really appropriate? Do we really think today that “Earth must atone for the blood of this man”? The anger feels inappropriate to me, at least. It was sincere at the time of the writing of the hymn, but does this hymn really represent half of what we think and feel about Joseph Smith?

I’m not proposing the elimination of either hymn from our meetings — each has a long tradition, and tradition trumps rules or theories when it comes to hymns.

Still, we could certainly use an alternative here or there — a hymn about the contribution of Joseph Smith to our church, our religion, and our lives which falls somewhere between “bees were humming” and “Earth must atone.”

Here’s an attempt, at least, at a hymn that is specifically about Joseph Smith, while concentrating not on a particular vision (though it opens with obvious reference to the First Vision), but rather on the impact of Joseph Smith’s revelations on the members of the church he founded.

Brother Joseph
by Orson Scott Card

He read the promise of the Lord;
He knelt to ask what church was right;
Then Son and Father in his sight
Filled Joseph’s heart with truth and light:
All things would be restored.
For Joseph burned with holy fire
To learn of things beyond our reach;
And when with fervor he’d beseech,
The Holy Spirit came to teach
And raise our vision higher.
For generations we have sought
To do as Joseph Smith enticed,
And willingly have sacrificed
To build the Church of Jesus Christ
And live the laws he taught.
Now, Lord, we join our praises with
All faithful saints of latter days:
For joy that lasts, for truth that stays,
For having learned eternal ways

From Brother Joseph Smith.

This hymn skirts the edge of being too specific — it would be appropriate to sing primarily on occasions tied to Joseph Smith’s life. But that’s all right — we need some occasional hymns. What would we do, for instance, without hymns that we sing only at Christmastime?

The real problems come in the third stanza, where the word enticed, while it is not completely inappropriate, still comes as a surprise, since we usually think of “enticement” as “leading to temptation.” It was a stretch designed solely to find a rhyme for Christ and sacrificed, which struck me as a word that should be in a hymn about Joseph Smith, even though the hymn deliberately does not mention Brother Joseph’s martyrdom directly.

Still, the hymn works well without that third stanza, and I suspect that if this were ever to be included in a hymnbook, that third stanza would be dropped.

Musically, this hymn is problematical because of the five-line stanzas. The temptation would be to regularize it by repeating a line so it comes out with an even number. The obvious line to repeat would be the last in each stanza, but I would suggest that the fourth line would be the better choice.

It’s all about closure. When you repeat the last line, it feels redundant, anti-climactic — you have already said the words that close the stanza, and now you have to sing them again.

But when you repeat the penultimate line, you extend the tension that is building, so that when the last line comes, it is even more of a relief than it would ordinarily be. The sense of closure is much stronger, instead of being weakened.

There are other reasons, though, why I’m unhappy with this hymn. No matter what you do with it, it will feel like a long hymn — the way “Oh How Lovely Was the Morning” does. Not that there’s anything wrong with long hymns, but those that feel long make us just a little tired when we start to sing them, remembering that they go on and on.

Is it possible to cut this hymn down to shorter, four-line stanzas that won’t ask for repetition?

Here’s my attempt at a quicker version:

Brother Joseph (short-stanza version)
by Orson Scott Card

He read the promise of the Lord
And asked, “What path is right?”
The Savior came and said that light
Through him would be restored,
For Joseph burned with holy fire
To learn what God would teach.
With every upward step he’d reach,
The Spirit led him higher.
For generations we have sought
To build the church of Christ,
And willingly have sacrificed
To live as Joseph taught;
Now, Lord, we join our praises with
All saints of latter days,
For we were taught thy righteous ways

By Brother Joseph Smith.

Stanza for stanza, this is the same hymn, offering the same ideas and themes. But it would be quicker to sing, less ponderous, and does not invite repetition of any line.

Nevertheless, there are costs. Since it matters in our theology that both the Father and Son appeared in that First Vision, it might be irritating to some that the first stanza now only mentions that the Savior came.

However, I believe that since Mormons are all extremely familiar with the events of that vision, no one would take this as a denial of the presence of the Father, but merely as a recognition that it was the Savior who told young Joseph the role that he would play in the Restoration.

We expect a few compromises in hymn-writing in order to fit concepts into words that fit within the prescribed number of syllables.

That third stanza isn’t such a problem in the short version, you’ll notice: that problematic word enticed is gone.

The shorter version is likely to be a better singing experience; but the longer version is more full. Especially the last lines of the last stanza. The short version is fine:

For we were taught thy righteous ways

By Brother Joseph Smith.

But the list of the Prophet’s accomplishments is more satisfying when we get the building tension of:

For joy that lasts, for truth that stays,

For having learned eternal ways

From Brother Joseph Smith.

The phrase “eternal ways” works when it follows the “joy” and “truth” of the previous line. But it would not work standing alone in the short version — “righteous ways” is the one that contains the others, but not as effectively, I’m afraid, as singing all three terms — joy, truth, and eternal

The real question about both versions, of course, is whether it is simply too occasional to become a regular hymn of the Church, instead of a solo or choral number that would be performed for (rather than by) the congregation during the Joseph Smith bicentennial.

But let’s leave that up to the composers. Of course, if no composer finds these texts interesting, the question is moot. But I would be interested to see how differently composers will treat these two versions of what is essentially the same text. I would be delighted if both versions resulted in effective hymns.

Now, though, let me offer a completely different approach. Just as Newell Dayley’s hymn for the sesquicentennial of the pioneers’ entry into Salt Lake Valley never actually insists on the specifics of that event, why not a hymn for the Joseph Smith bicentennial that does not actually refer to him specifically at all?

The Prophet's Voice
by Orson Scott Card

The Prophet's voice cannot be quelled.

The righteous longings he has stirred

Cannot in silent hearts be held:

The world must hear the prophet's word.

O Saints! How lovingly we're led,

How tenderly he serves us all.

The Savior's feast is freely spread

For all who heed the prophet's call.

So many souls! The world is wide,

Yet every heart will have the choice:

For one man's words are magnified

When Saints become the prophet's voice.

By implication, this hymn would be very appropriate on occasions connected with Joseph Smith’s life. The opening line — “The Prophet’s voice cannot be quelled” — can certainly be taken to refer to the attempt of Joseph Smith’s enemies to silence him by killing him.

Yet it could as easily refer to our current Church President speaking in Conference or the First Presidency making powerful statements to the world, like The Proclamation on the Family.

Because this hymn is not tied to one prophet in particular, it can lead the singers through the story, not of Joseph Smith’s life, but rather of how the words of the Prophet are made effective, first by the way they change us, the members of the Church, and then by the way we take those words out into the wider world.

This hymn does much more, I think, of what hymns should do: Inspire us to change our behavior by giving musical voice to the aspirations of the faithful. With the right music, those last two lines — “For one man’s words are magnified / When Saints become the prophet’s voice” — may become quite stirring. That’s this hymnist’s hope, anyway.

And yet that hope didn’t stop me from making another try at the concluding stanza. Here’s a different version:

Each heart must hear and make the choice.

So many souls! The world is wide.

Yet all will hear the prophet's voice

When by the Saints it's magnified.

Why would this version be preferable? It’s not as emotional; it doesn’t clinch the way the first version did. Magnified is not as effective an end-word as the monosyllabic voice.

The reason I wrote this is because I recognize that some people might be uncomfortable with the phrase “one man’s words.” Even though the prophet is always a man, it nevertheless might feel, in this politically correct world, as if that phrase emphasizes the fact that women don’t hold the priesthood.

That should not be a concern; but in choosing a hymn, one should think hard before choosing words that might well offend a noticeable portion of the congregations that will be expected to sing it. The fact that it is doctrinally correct doesn’t necessarily trump the desire to make the song more universal.

Wiser souls than I would need to make that call. Though my personal preference, solely because I think it’s the more powerful phrasing, is for the first version — and primarily because of that very phrase, “one man’s words.”

I think it’s not a bad idea for us to remember that unless we, by our lives and words, extend the prophet’s reach, he remains just one man.

And it’s also a good thing for us to remember the humanity of the prophet. Being an instrument of the Lord does not raise him above the level of other humans. Because we are also called to do exactly the same work as the prophet: to carry the words of God into the world.

--------

Post your comments — but not your own hymn texts, unless you wish to surrender copyright! — here on Meridian. And don’t send hymn texts to me! I’m not a music publisher.

However, if you’re a composer and wish to set one of my hymns to music, don’t ask for my permission first. I hereby grant you permission to use my hymn text free of charge in your own musical setting, as long as you don’t publish or sell the result.

In other words, you can perform your hymn as much as you want. But the moment you want to publish it or record it or charge for it, then we need to talk — I’ll need to hear your hymn and decide if I approve of it before you can publish, record, or charge for the combined work. I can be reached at http://www.nauvoo.com or http://www.hatrack.com.

And if I deny permission, then you can simply write your own words to fit the music you wrote. You won’t lose a thing.