Hymn Tunes: What's in a Name?

A message posted recently to the Methodist Musicians' List asked, "Does anyone know what the tune name is for 'Lord, Be Glorified' (The Faith We Sing, 2150)?" List members, some looking up the song in several different collections, responded with several different names.

Hymn texts are usually named for the opening line, such as "O, for a Thousand Tongues to Sing." Of course, there are others that acquire a most commonly used name from some other source, such as "How Great Thou Art," named for the concluding phrase of the refrain, not even the opening phrase of the refrain. "Here I Am, Lord" is usually known by the opening of its refrain. Hal Hopson's "The Gift of Love" (UM Hymnal 408) has been given a text title that does not even appear in the text.

Unfortunately, tune names are even more chaotic, and there is no standard for tune names other than common use. There is no authoritative or legal source that provides the one, accurate, true name for hymn tunes. Consider "The Gift of Love." That hymn tune comes from an old English folk tune, O WALY WALY. For whatever reason, Hopson or our hymnal's editors and committee members decided to use GIFT OF LOVE as the tune name. In another hymnal, this same tune may go by an entirely different and unrelated name assigned to it by the hymnal editors. The tune AMAZING GRACE in our hymnal (#378) also goes by ST. MARY'S, GALLAHER, NEW BRITAIN, and no fewer than five other nineteenth century tune names. It's legal and it's common, leading to considerable confusion on the part of those who want to properly identify, use, and credit texts and tunes.

I would hope we might use LORD, BE GLORIFIED since that's what's used in The Faith We Sing. I've seen at least four other variations used: BE GLORIFIED, GLORIFIED, and IN MY LIFE, as well as KILPATRICK (after the composer). Interestingly, in The Faith We Sing, we do not even identify this song by its opening phrase, "In my life, Lord," in the listing of titles, choosing instead to identify it only by the "Lord, be glorified" phrase. The titling is made even more confusing when songbooks change the words and identify the title as "In Our Lives, Lord, Be Glorified."

I hope that someday all publishers will agree to identify text titles by the opening words first and then by any other commonly used title, such as "Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory," then "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but that we will always include the opening words. I also hope that we might have a small group tasked with naming hymn tunes (regardless of what text to which they may be wedded), and that all publishers will use the tune names they assign. Perhaps the Hymn Society could do this. I don't have very much hope that this will come about. Nonetheless, hope remains.