I think the reason so many English like Jerusalem is because it calls on them to be better than they are, and to struggle righteously for a just society. Even if you're not Christian, that's a stirring sentiment. Heck, I like it and I'm Irish.
Danby | 04.30.08 - 12:01 pm | #

I mainly remember this song from the one Deep Space Nine episode where Bashir and O'Brien (an Irishman to the core!) get drunk and sing it together... but it's a great song, regardless.

"Bring me my bow of burning gold..."
Nathan | 04.30.08 - 12:12 pm | #

That's awesome. So where do I buy a copy of it? The only version I've heard is Vangelis' arrangement, and this knocks his all hollow.
Darren Jones | 04.30.08 - 12:32 pm | #

Darren:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_s...+palmer&x=0& y=0
Danby | 04.30.08 - 12:53 pm | #

It's not strange at all that people like this hymn. The melody of it is absolutely stirring and beautiful. I think it strange that Mark Shea thinks it strange!
Elizabeth | 04.30.08 - 1:20 pm | #

Though I don't know in which context it was originally recorded or performed, EMI's two-disc compilation release, Classical 2008, which a friend of mine lent me a few weeks ago, included a performance of "Jerusalem" as sung by Lesley Garrett. It was breathtaking.

I imagine the album is easy enough to find anywhere, but those wishing for something even easier can find the song in streaming audio here. I've tested it, and it's both complete and functional. I should warn you, though; if you like your anthems subtle, quiet, or bashful, this is not the recording for you.

Enjoy!
Nick Milne | Homepage | 04.30.08 - 1:37 pm | #

Thanks! Now I can take the bag off of my head!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m...h? v=mpn1anVPZsc

That song also conjures the smell of pot in my nostrils. (Thank my parents.)
Dr. Acula | 04.30.08 - 2:23 pm | #

English rock singer (and licensed commercial pilot/radio host/Olympic class fencer/novelist) Bruce Dickinson (of Iron Maiden fame) offers new music to the poem on his critically acclaimed solo album "The Chemical Wedding".

I really think only the English can explain their emotions about this song.
Schultz | 04.30.08 - 2:51 pm | #

Oh wow. I haven't heard this song since I sold all my LPs. Including all my ELP LPs. (Har har). I may have to go all digital and buy this song.

I used to be a HUGE ELP fan, and absolutely dug blasting Jerusalem from my VW bug's 8-track at brain-liquefying volumes. And yes, I had plenty of dates, thank you.
Gary Keith Chesterton | 04.30.08 - 3:16 pm | #

I remember hearing ELP peform this in concert, more than 30 years ago. It was inspiring. Even this one is pretty good.
Francesca | 04.30.08 - 5:04 pm | #

I am English btw, and that's precisely why we cannot explain what Jerusalem means to us.
Francesca | 04.30.08 - 5:05 pm | #

France "eldest daughter of the Church"; Tsarist Russia "Christ of Nations"; Jesus roaming Britain's hills; Jesus showed up on America's Oh So Special soil?

Truly, only Canada remains God-forsaken, January in Regina being proof enough.
cricket 2008 | Homepage | 04.30.08 - 7:25 pm | #

The ELP version does not compare to the one on the BBC Concert Orchestra, Barry Wordsworth & The Royal Choral Society release ('The Last Night of the Proms' release)
brian | 04.30.08 - 11:35 pm | #

Apropos of nothing, I'm a huge fan of Matisyahu's "Jerusalem". Search Matisyahu Jerusalem on the youtube.
John | Homepage | 05.01.08 - 12:30 am | #

I used to adore EL&P--and this was my favorite album, this was my favorite song on the album! I was always puzzled by the words, and knew about the William Blake poem (as I had found it in my English class at the time!) and was even more puzzled when I learned this was a popular hymn sung in the Anglican Church. Thanks for your take on it, and for bringing back good memories from my tween/teen years!
Catholic Mom | 05.01.08 - 3:20 am | #

Oh! And the line, "Bring me my Chariot of Fire" is where the title of the popular movie "Chariots of Fire" came from!
Catholic Mom | 05.01.08 - 3:24 am | #

Personally, I find ELP's version to be much better than Parry's original. The original is in 3/4 throughout, eventually feels a bit monotonous. The ELP version shifts between 3/4 and 4/4, which allows for more emphasis. ("And did those feet" [beat] "in ancient times" [beat] ...)

I agree with Mark that Greg Lake's atheism can be annoying in his lyrics (in fact, I think his lyrics as a whole are not very good). By 1973, Peter Sinfield was brought in to write lyrics for the band, which was a great improvement.

Edward Macan, in his excellent an book on Emerson, Lake & Palmer, argues that it was no accident that "Jerusalem" is the first track on Brain Salad Surgery. The overriding theme of the album is the dehumanization of mankind by technology. Thus the album begins with "England's green and pleasant land", passes through modern decadence, and ends in a dystopian future where the machines have no further use for mankind....
Lawrence King | Homepage | 05.01.08 - 6:22 am | #

I thought the setting was composed for the English suffragist movement during WW1, not as a WW1 nationalist hymn but as a social justice-type hymn.
Liam | 05.01.08 - 9:00 am | #

+J.M.J+

Up till now, all I've really known about Jerusalem is that they sung part of it on Monty Python's Flying Circus a few times. That's the only place I've heard it before. Now that I've heard ELP's rendition, though, I'd like to get it (wonder if I can purchase it as a music download?)

Another excellent hymn, IMHO, is O God of Earth and Altar by G.K. Chesterton. The music may not be quite as stirring as Jerusalem, but I think the words are.

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 05.01.08 - 10:36 am | #

Do you want to hear the definitive version which will make you shiver with delight?

Jerusalem - Last Night of the Proms 06

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U...h? v=UQ0oCmDXrVk
Paul | 05.01.08 - 12:44 pm | #

"Up till now, all I've really known about Jerusalem is that they sung part of it on Monty Python's Flying Circus a few times."

I distinctly remember it during THE BISHOP!! (still one of my all time faves).
Chris Molter | 05.01.08 - 12:56 pm | #

Paul--

Thanks for that; it really was as good as you say.

My favourite part, though, both in this video and in others from the same event, is that the camera panning across the audience can't avoid the enormous Vatican City flag someone is waving front row center. Delightful!
Nick Milne | Homepage | 05.01.08 - 2:24 pm | #

+J.M.J+

>>>I distinctly remember it during THE BISHOP!! (still one of my all time faves).

Yes, I also remember it in that sketch:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Bishop

But I think they may have sung the beginning of that hymn on one or two other occasions, IIRC. I just don't recall the specifics.

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 05.01.08 - 5:03 pm | #

Ah, well; I googled a little and found that the song was also featured in the Mattress Sketch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r...h? v=rGEeLtqtNvU

And in the episode "Owl-Stretching Time":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Wil...ture#Television

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 05.01.08 - 5:21 pm | #

This version is sort of folksied up. You need a choir and an organ and a proper tempo without those not quite on the beat hesitations.

I really dislike it when people take hymns and try to turn them into popular music. "Christian" radio does this all the time; they take something wonderful like "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" and mess with the tempo and do a lush orchestration and sing in in a style like a crooner or a bar singer!
Imagine messing with music written by JS Bach!
And words written by Luther, who though a heretic, is a giant compared to the folks at Christian radio.

Now Jerusalem is a less solid hymn. It is a bit...Pelagian, shall we say? It ends "Til we have build Jerusalem/ In England's green and pleasant land." Jerusalem is being contrasted with the Dark Satanic Mills. It might be compared to those lines in America the Beautiful "thine alabaster cities gleam/undimmed by human tears." It doesn't say much about God's kingdom or our utter inability to build Jerusalem, or anything good without grace. If Jerusalem stands for heaven, well, can men build heaven? It is sort of proto-Marxist.

On the other hand it is a way of looking at the evils of the world around you and putting them up against the holiness of God, and deciding they are of sin and need to be opposed, the way the evangelical man who wrote Amazing Grace did with slavery. In this light, the hymn can be seen as Christian.

But please, sing it like a hymn, not like a folk song or a show tune.
Susan Peterson | 05.01.08 - 10:55 pm | #

+J.M.J+

do you think the song "City of God" is also a bit Pelagian?

In Jesu et Maria,
Rosemarie | 05.02.08 - 8:36 am | #

Rosemarie,

Do you mean the song "Let us build the city of God," (where our tears are turned into dancing)
?
To be honest I don't remember all the words of it, so to analyze it's theology would be a mistake.
There is also a hymn, isn't there, in the 1940 Episcopal hymnal "City of God how great and how far"?
Honestly, I would have to do some research to answer your question, whichever one you are referring to.

Ok, I have found the Anglican one, "City of God, how broad and far/Outspread thy walls sublime."

1940 hymnal #386, by Samuel Johnson 1860 to the tune "Richmond" Thomas Haweis 1792.

This whole hymn is about the city of God/kingdom of God, as the church. I assume the theology behind it is of the Protestant "invisible church" sort, yet there are all kinds of references to "thy towers" and "thine empire" so I think a mental equivalence to the C of E and the British Empire was probably also being invoked here. Yet there is also reference to the church in every age and clime, and to the eternal city. There is no reference to improving the material condition of man or to an idea that we can do it ourselves.

I think I have a Glory and Praise upstairs and will try to find the other one.

No, what I had upstairs was a "People's Mass Book dated Jan 6 1970." I can't find that hymn in it.
I'll look briefly on the internet, or perhaps you could cite the text?
Susan Peterson | 05.03.08 - 1:13 pm | #

I found it on the internet. I would have to say that it is theologically incoherent and thus difficult to analyze in those terms. It might suggest that we can build the city of God as long as God "brightens our way." But what does that mean? Is it a refernce to grace?

(This reminds me of an old friend of mine, who standing next to me at a prayer meeting we were attending in exchange for securing the attendance of the campus Protestants to our Compline service, whispered during the singing of Amazing Grace, "Is this actual grace or sanctifying grace?"Yet that song definitely has a coherent, albeit not Catholic, theology.)

"Let us build the city of God" is one of those songs that one can't find much harm in, but not much of substance either; it is a sort of feel good thing. A lot of hymns, of course, even of the older hymns, fall into that category.But I would have to say that taken as a whole, the post 1970 Catholic hymns tend to fall into that category much more than the older hymns. Of course some of them do say things which are actually wrong. But what is wrong with most of them is that they don't say much. Also, a lot of them don't say much in uninspiring music.

Susan Peterson

ps I know most of the older hymns are Protestant, although some you might not think of are Catholic, for instance, Faith of our Fathers, written by the Oratorian Fr. Frederick Faber, also "There's a wideness in God's mercy." I know Catholic are supposed to chant the mass, not sing hymns at mass, but if you are going to be singing hymns, some are definitely better than others
Susan Peterson | 05.03.08 - 1:28 pm | #