The choir I sing with has an arrangement of Amazing Grace (I actually haven’t sung this one with them - it’s barely before my time):
I actually like the arrangement, but it made me realize that the song is really quite boring. The way they just keep repeating the same 2 lines - and really, those are the only two lines that are sung in 90% of the times I’ve heard the song.
It’s not too bad with the other verses incuded.
I prefer this verse:
When we’ve been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we first begun.
Watched the first 30 seconds of the video - you must be a lot younger than I thought if that’s the choir you’re singing in.
Now I’ve watched more of the video - I’m good now.
It’s a pretty fun choir to be in. There are 5 total choirs: Preschool, Elementary School, Middle School, High School, and Adults (not the names they give them, but general age groups). Adults are audition, everything else is not. In a lot of the songs several of the choirs are all singing together, so you’ll have the adults on the risers, Jr High/High School kids in the balconies, and elementary school kids on the stage in front of the orchestra (the preschool never really participate in the big numbers). In our location (we have the most participants, although the Utah group is catching up pretty quick), there are enough youth that in those songs there may be 500+ people singing at the same time.
There were actually so many youth that they had to be split into two “casts” because they all couldn’t fit in a concert together.
That’s cool. If I had any ability to sing it would be fun to be a part of something like that.
It’s a great performance though. Really fun with the live orchestra. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah - it’s not very often that your 4 year old gets to sing backed by a full orchestra. That’s a pretty neat experience.
By the way, I thought this thread was going to be about songs that you think sound great, but then as soon as you actually listen to the lyrics you are like whoa, not listening to that with my kids around…
But your topic was good too.
If you want the thread to go there, I’m fine with it. It’s accomplished my purpose and can move on if it wants to.
Here’s one that the first time I heard it I was like yeah, this is catchy. Then I looked up the lyrics and watched the video (heard it on Pandora first).
The person that wrote “You’re a Grand Old Flag”, with the line, “where there’s never a boast or brag”…,
Had they just never met any Americans?
Yeah, that always struck me as odd. Especially coming right after “the home of the free and the brave”.
Now we could perhaps discuss whether “free” is just a statement of fact or a boast/brag.
But I think “brave” is sufficiently subjective that you’d pretty much have to call that boasting/bragging.
And sure, taking on the King of England was a brave thing to do, so it’s justified boasting I guess. But it’s still boasting.
Evidently, y’all haven’t heard of irony.
Is that line supposed to be ironic?
Irony is definitely one of those things I never really grasped the definition of, and I definitely can’t distinguish between the various types - but I generally can at least recognize that someone is trying to use it.
The other interpretation is that it’s not boasting or bragging if you’re simply telling the truth.
I don’t see anything in the definitions of “boast” or “brag” that restricts it due to the truthfullness of the thing you are boasting or bragging about…
And, anyway - my original comment wasn’t about the song itself boasting (although it does…), but about the fact that, if you’ve ever met an American, the statement “there’s never a boast or brag” is simply ridiculous.
FWIW - I love musicals. If you want to take me to one I’d be ecstatic.
I suspect that the real reason that line is in the song is, “The author couldn’t come up with a better rhyme”.
Which is a fine thing in some songs. I actually really like that they threw the word “salmonella” into this song:
It’s annoying in “Grand Old Flag” though. I’m not sure where the line is.