Ye Modern Muficke Sonnge

A song written in my last year as an undergraduate. Silly, but how true do you think it is?

I have written music to go with it. The verses are a parody of the well-known "song" Shine, Jesus, Shine. The chorus is an ornamented version of Purcell's hymn tune "Westminster Abbey." Feel free to use your own imagination!

1. Music’s gone through different phases,
Odd adjustments and various crazes.
Yet what I find really perturbing,
Perplexing, alarming, and rather disturbing:
Modern Hymns,
Modern Hymns!

Chorus:
Praises To the English Hymnal,
Solid and stable as a rock.
Never wrong or unpredictable,
Timing stricter than a clock,
Yet poetic and eclectic,
And with style that none should mock.

2. Modern hymns have got lots of oddities.
Misprints and page turns are not commodities.
Timing’s erratic and I don’t know what key it’s in;
Looks like D flat but I don’t see how G fits in:
Augmented fourths!
Augmented fourths!

Chorus:
Praises to the English Hymnal,
Realm of concord and harmony.
Dissonance is merely passing
Polyhymnia’s testimony.
True and proper, won’t come a cropper.
Nothing false, fake or phoney.

3. Where’s the poetry in modern musicianship?
Rhyming’s slack and the grammar be on the slip.
"Gonna" isn’t a word in the Testament!
Joshua and Moses wouldn’t know what on Earth it meant!
In English Please!
In English Please!

Chorus
Praises to the English Hymnal,
Worthy Paragon of language pure.
Thou declaim’st in English perfect
No split infinitives must we endure.
Theologically,and pedagogically
From all folly doth us inure!

4. OK, the green book’s got lots of big words in it,
And the hymns last well over a minute,
But each line fits the tune, not vice versa,
Modern Hymns just get worser and worser!
Some lines really don’t fit at all!
Some lines really don’t fit at all!

Chorus:
Praises to the English Hymnal
And perhaps to AMNS!
Sixteen verses of "Let all Mortal"
Cause no permanent anguish or distress.
"Praise my Soul" or "Love Divine"
Are loved by all. Well, more or less!