Music Notes 9-1-24

This Sunday we welcome my wife, Eileen, to our worship service. Our faithful section leaders have been covering the month of August musically, so I told them I’d look after Labor Day weekend. This week’s offertory, Kingdom of My Heart, is kind of “our song”. It’s a favorite of Eileen’s - she had me sing it, with her accompanying me, at her retirement Sunday at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, where she was music director, and we performed it a year ago at her current church, Bethlehem Lutheran Church where she is bell choir director, on the day of our 40th anniversary. So, when I started to plan for this week, it seemed entirely appropriate to ask her to play for me, as it’s her first time playing in public since getting her knee replaced. Welcome, sweetheart.

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot belongs to a genre of spirituals called “code songs”. The slave owners didn’t allow the slaves to gather and congregate, for fear that they would plan rebellion or escape. They did allow them to sing in the fields, but there again, the song topics were limited. All the slaves were required to go to church, so religious subjects were considered safe topics for songs, thus the development of spirituals. But the slaves were crafty, and some spirituals were used to impart information to other slaves about escaping, but in code. Wade In The Water reminded the slaves to walk lengthwise down streams, not just across, so that the dogs following would lose their scent. Swing Low Sweet Chariot was very specific. It referred to the town of Ripley, Virginia, on the banks of the Roanoke River and whose residents were wellknown as supporters of the Underground Railroad. The knowledge was, if you could get across the Roanoke, you were safe. It was basically free sailing to Toronto, which was the end of the Railroad. The slaves would get to the banks of the Roanoke, across from Ripley and hide in the brush until nightfall. After midnight, residents of Ripley would come across in rowboats and take the slaves to freedom. So, the “sweet chariot” referred to the rowboats, “I looked over Jordan” referred to the Roanoke and the “band of angels comin’ after me” referred to the residents of Ripley. Swing Low Sweet Chariot was Harriot Tubman’s favorite spiritual, and her friends and relatives, who were gathered around her deathbed, were singing it to her as she passed.

Mark Hayes is a composer/arranger/pianist based in Kansas City whose music is renowned around the world. He got his degree in piano performance at Baylor University, moved to Kansas City to work as a music editor for Tempo Publishing, and now spends his time writing music for the church and traveling around the world as a clinician and guest conductor. When I met Mark in the late 80’s, I was struck by his pianistic skills – more specifically, the way he manhandled the piano into submission to produce the most wondrous sounds. Mark’s writing is superbly crafted, with influences of black gospel and jazz. He’s one of my favorite contemporary writers. This week’s offertory is an original song he wrote with lyricist Barbara Axton called The Kingdom Of My Heart. It was part of a cantata he completed in 1985 called Jubilate published by Tempo Music. It was an unusual concept at the time – a mixture of musical styles – traditional anthems, pop solos, big orchestra – and was designed for an adult choir, soloists, a youth choir, a junior choir, a handbell choir, a liturgical dance team, an orchestra, a narrator, and places for the congregation to join in the singing. There are a number of particularly groovy pieces that we will get to here as time goes on, including a wonderful communion medley, an old hymn medley and several marvelous anthems that the choir will enjoy sinking their teeth into. It was about a year after this came out that I met Mark and got familiar with his music. Kingdom Of My Heart talks about the inner struggle we all feel from time to time, and coming to the realization that, in the end, there’s always something to be thankful for. This is Eileen’s favorite song, one she loves to accompany and one she asked me to sing on her last day as music director at St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, so I’ve invited her to accompany it this morning.