The Sunday Reflection #50 - Why is modern religious music so rubbish?

 When I was a little kid, my parents made me go to Church every week. I wouldn't say they forced me, it was just what our family did. There was a ritual. Dad had a big car, which started off as a Humber Sprite, then a Ford Zephyr and a Ford Zodiac. They all had bench seats. At 10/40am us kids would all pile in the front, then Dad would drive up to the Cottage Homes (retirement home for old ladies). He'd pick up three old ladies, I can recall Mrs Faller and Mrs Monaghan and he'd take us all to 11am mass at The Sacred Heart Church. After mass, he'd drop the ladies home, take us to the 'little shop' on Shakespeare Road and stock up on provisions. This included freshly cut ham, garibaldi biscuits, smoked salmon, and other tasty provisions that my frugal mother considered to expensive. He'd then drop us back and go for a drink whilst Mum made dinner.

When I was a small, Mass was in Latin. It was all sung, incence was liberally dispensed (a mate at school, when asked what he liked best at mass by a visiting priest replied 'The smell of incest', for which he was sent to the Head Mistress for a beating with the tennis bat. None of us knew what incest was, until I asked my sister). I used to quite enjoy it, it was very different from the rest of the week. The main proceedings were unintelligible. Then we'd get berated by the priest in his sermon and told we were all going to Hell if we didn't repent, and we'd sing a few hymns. There were several that I rather liked. Oh Praise ye the Lord was a banging tune. Faith of our fathers was a bit more reflective and others had excellent melodies such as How great though art. 

When I was about seven or eight, things changed. Suddenly mass was in English and we started to get modern hymns and even worse Folk Masses, where geezers with beards would play guitars and sing songs with duff melodies and choruses that had clunky choruses which didn't scan very well, that were sort of like Jesus you are marvellous, Jesus you are the best, Jesus I think your wonderful, Jesus you are blessed. Even as a child, I hated these. I couldn't really see the point of telling God how marvellous he was. I mean, God is meant to be omnipotent and all knowing, so he must know we like him and if we don't and we're telling porkies, it would just irritate him and he may smite us?

As I got more into music and analysed what made a good hymn, I concluded a good tune was the key. Perhaps the best hymn is Abide with me. It also has decent lyrics.

Abide with me, fast falls the eventide

The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide

When other helpers fail and comforts flee

Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me

To me, this makes sense. When you are in the deep do do, it is quite natural to want Gods presence, so it is a very logical and sensible emotion. I concluded that the best hymns are also sensible prayers, not telling God he's marvellous but asking politely for his support through the dark moments in our lives. 

Sadly, the vast majority of hymns fail to have any merit at all. Where are the Amazing Grace's of the current era? A mate suggested that Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is up there and I don't disagree, but I am not entirely sure it qualifies as a hymn, as to me a hymn should be specifically written to be sung by a congregation. I used to work with a lovely chap who was also a brilliant guitarist. He was an evangelical Christian and I mentioned this view. He immediately brought me in some CD's of modern Christian music that he said would totally refute my view that modern Christians can't write religious music. Sadly, the CD's largely by failed American rock musicians, who'd discovered God, had the opposite effect to what he intended. They were all in major keys and the message was Oh Lord, you are marvellous, please make me marvellous as well. I wanted to burn the CD's as I thought the music was horrible. 

When I first got Sky TV, I flicked through the channels and found a US TV Evangalist channel. There was a geezer with a moustache who looked like a porn actor. He was tellinge everyone that if they prayed and donated lots of money to him, the Lord would make them rich. There was suitably trite music in the background, there was one 'song' which sort of had the Chorus of "Oh Lord, I've made my donation, now give me a massive bung of wonga". Well those weren't the exact lyrics but that was the sentiment. I wish ill on no one, but I do hope there is a special place in Hell for such charlatans. 

I was discussing my aversion to religious music with a friend who is a Catholic Priest. He suggested that I write a hymn, if I am so dismissive of other people's attempts. I had a go and realised it is not easy. As my lyrical style is mildly humourous observational sarcasm, it is not really suited to such things. But having said that, could it be worse than some of the abominations that have been written? My rather uncharitable take on many modern musicians who play in Church is that they do it for the captive audience. Of course, many churches have amazing choirs and great players, but I am sure anyone who regularly visits a church will know of certain people who give our lugholes a right old bashing. Of course, this is not a very christian observation, as we should be inclusive and encourage everyone to participate. 

Having said that, I was slung out of the choir at the Sacred Heart when I was a kid for being 'unmusical' and not able to sing, so I guess I have an axe to grind. What I subsequently realised was that most hymns are simply in the wrong key for my voice and the melodies push past the range of what I can manage. I realised that the majority of hymns were actually written to suite people with a different vocal range and style to me. Now I would never claim to be a technically gifted singer, but it would be nice if there were a few decent ones that I could join in with. 

One of the things that not too many people realise about singing is that it alters your mood and makes you feel better. There is a reason for this. The simple act of singing means that you inhale far more oxygen than you would normally, as you need a large volume of air to excite your vocal chords. This means that you have more oxygen in your blood stream, which actually makes you feel good. So a stonking hymn at a church service, that you can sing along to, will physically change your mood and brain patterns. Singing in a choir is a great thing to do, if you can manage the notes. I just wish I could and I wish that the stuff they sing at church these datys inspired me in the way that Ska and Punk rock music does, and even the old classic Victorian hymns did. But then again, this is the way God made me, and as my mate Bob the Scouser always says "God doesn't get things wrong". 

I did start to try and write a hymn during lockdown. It soon morphed into a song about our local church, because as I said my style is observational humour. When I started playing it, I realised that it was dull pompous and boring, so I kept the first verse and widended the subject matter to a general comment on Sundays in the 1970s. Much of the rest of the song is inspired by the reminiscences of our drummer Graham Rambo Ramsey. I rather like it now, I hope God does!

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The Sunday Reflection #41 - How Sundays have changed

Sunday is a very different day now to what it was when I was a kid back in the 1960's. We really live in different world now.  We went out for dinner with friends last night. Myself and my good mate Paul started reminiscing about when we were children and were both alter servers at our respective churches. I was raised in Mill Hill and would serve on a Sunday at the Sacred Heart. Paul was raised in Gravesend. We are about the same age and we were discussing how much things have changed. When we started, Mass was in Latin, we had no idea what they were on about. My elder brother Frank once told me that he went off religion when they stopped saying mass in Latin. Once he realised what they were saying, he decided it was all a load of old tosh. When you received communion, you had to kneel down and stick your tongue out. The Priest would stick a host on it. An alter server would hold a plate under your chin, because they were scared that a piece of the Jesus might fall on the floor and get eaten by mice. At some point, in the early 1970's, they changed the rules. First you didn't have to kneel down, then you could receive the host in your hand. Once that rule was brought in, the plate was dispensed with. At some point in the 1980's, the Church decided that girls could become alter servers. If you took a Roman Catholic from the 1950's and plonked them in the Sacred Heart in 2025, they would probably think they were in a Church of a different denomintation. I stopped being an alter server when I was fourteen and stopped going to mass at the same time. This coincided with my discovery of punk rock and was my way of being a rebel. My Dad was deeply upset and told me that "people like you are ruining the country". To some extent, he undermined his own arguement when he fell out with the Parish Priest and refused to go to the Sacred Heart. For a period, he'd go to the Annunciation in Burnt Oak instead. My Mum, who was recovering from cancer, often decided she was too ill to go to mass. Oddly, she usually recovered by the evening, and would knock back eight pints of Guinness.

It isn't just mass that has changed. Mill Hill Broadway was very different. None of the shops would've been open, apart from the tobacconist, who sold newspapers. You'd know it was the tobacconist, as it would have cigarrette machines outside. These were for any smokers who ran out of ciggies after the shop shut. There was none of the cafe culture we now see on  Sunday. I published a guest blog by my aunt, Audrey Shaw, which detailed the changes in the Broadway between 1958 and 2009. What are now cafe's were things like the electricity show room and the greengrocers. There was literally nothing to do. 

The highlight, for me, of Sunday was The Big Match on ITV. This was presented by Brian Moore and was the highlights from one of the matches on Saturday. The telly was black and white. When I was a wee nipper, it was the only chance I ever got to watch football.  Expert analysis was provided by Jimmy Hill. The pitches, at this time of year, were often quagmires. Much of the match consisted of brutal tackles, an art form perfected by the likes of "Chopper Harris" of Chelsea. The back pass to the goalkeeper was a productive timewasting tactic. Yellow and Red cards had not been brought in. Players were simply booked or sent off, although generally sendings off were reseved for punch ups. Players would sit in the dug out smoking cigarettes. Players were called Dave rather than David, virtually all were white anglo saxons. The chants were aggressive and the terraces were not segregated. If you wanted a punch up, you'd stand near the away fans. You could have a beer on the terraces. In the 1960's, there was no racist chanting, because  there were no black players on the field. That was more a thing of the 1980s. Kits did not have sponsors and the numbers were 1-11. If you were the centre half, you were given the number five jersey and it didn't have your name on it. Just the club badge, no sponsorship. Replica shirts were not on sale, so you wore a scarf to show your allegiance. The grounds had names like Maine Road, Highbury and Highfield Road. They weren't named after foreign airlines etc. Teams like Burnley, Derby County and Nottingham Forest won the league. Jimmy Hill would explain why. We needed Brian Moore to commentate, because the low resolution, black and white tellies meant we didn't know who was on the ball. 

As a Manchester City fan, the best thing was when City won and they were on the Big Match. This happened 3-4 times a season. When you went to a match, you'd be excited if you saw the cameras as you knew you'd see the highlights. When I was little, I wasn't allowed to stay up and watch Match of the Day as it was on too late. The Big Match was on at 3pm on Sunday. The only problem was we only had one telly. No one else in the house liked football, so there was always a bunfight. Being the youngest and smallest, it was by no means a shoe in, but as it was the only football I got to see, it was worth the fight. I found this video from 1969 featuring City Vs West Ham. This was as good as it got on a Sunday for me!

Click Image for tickets

The other feature of Sunday, was it was 'family day'. Roast dinners, tinned peaches with Carnation evaporated milk. After lunch, Mum and Dad would retire to bed for a rest and to read the papers, unless we had guests over. When my brother Frank and sister Cath moved away, we might drive up to their house for lunch. Dad especially liked visiting Cath, because he could hurtle up the M1 to Northampton in his souped up Mk 1 Ford Capri. Frank lived in Chelmsford that was a far more boring drive, just busy A roads (no M25). Mum was not a fan of Dad's drving. He was a maniac behind the wheel. There were no speed cameras, so you only got nicked if  a police car caught you speeding. This wasn't a concern to my Dad. For him, driving was fun. Would anyone drive up the M1 for fun today?

Sunday was a very different day to the rest of the week. I wrote a song and made a video about this a couple of years ago, called Sunday in th 70's (See below). And on the subject of Sundays, next Sunday will see the 46th Birthday party for my band, The False Dots at The Dublin Castle. Please come down and say Hi!

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