why did they have to butcher the kingdom melodies?

by purrpurr 63 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Oubliette

  Blondie: I wonder how many songs were ... composed by now out jws

  Oh the irony!

  Answer: Lots of them.

  One of my favorite apostates and a brilliant composer, Frank Kavelin (aka JWN member DNCall), now has MORE songs in the songbook than he did when he was an elder in "good standing."

  Crazy, huh? I guess Holy Spirit is OK with it, so I'm good too.

  (For those that don't know, Frank wrote Make The Truth Your Own, as well as many other of the best music JWs ever heard when in KHs, Circuit Assemblies, District Conventions and when watching many of the society's videos. And just so you know, Frank had nothing to do with the current arrangment of MTTYO.)
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  Apognophos

  Oh, wow, I didn't know he wrote that. That's like the most popular song in the songbook.
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  factfinder

  We were using the pink songbook when I began attending meetings in 1976 and I liked it. When the new one came out in 1984 it was a big thing. I liked that one a lot too. I loved the KM cassettes.

  I have not been to any meetings since they began using the new songbook but my brother sent me a cd of songs from it and except for one or two, those songs are horrible! They ruined the melodies of songs I used to love.

  This new gb is running the jw religion to the ground.

  Blondie- I remember we had a piano player at the hall when I began attending too.
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  factfinder

  compound complex-

  that is very interesting that you wrote some of the songs in the pink songbook. There were good songs back then.
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  prologos

  Whenever I harmonize the notes of the songs, (humming) I get dirty looks. how about some freedom lyrics set to the melodies/?
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  TheListener

  I believe the change was a control thing. it was a way of stripping off a bit of comfort that some older ones had. Music is a great communicator and they didnt want feelings of nostalgia creeping in and reminding them of how mucb has cbanged so fast. Especially when the organization is about to leap forward and be a lot more jw.orgy.
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  compound complex

  Thanks, factfinder, for the good thought; however, my lowly task was putting the books together, not composing the melodies.

  Some of those songs are truly beautiful. I rearranged many into classical form for performances I gave over the years.

  Best.CC
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  Hairtrigger

  I can't remember which ones off hand ( haven't been to a KH for months now) , but a number of melodies smack of plagiarized notes from "worldly" songs. I remember thinking to myself," this sounds familiar. The notes sound exactly like some forgotten song from my childhood." Anyone with a similar experience?
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  prologos

  yeah, an older song had the theme, a few bars of the soviet national anthem .

  some of the beautiful national anthems were former church songs. Hayden et al.
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  berrygerry

  One post mentioned Splane.

  If you have seen the Seinfeld episode with "The Maestro" and imagine Splane as the Maestro, you can begin to understand.