Amazing Grace

For other uses, see Amazing Grace (disambiguation).

Amazing Grace
Written	1772

A piper plays "Amazing Grace" on Memorial Day. "Amazing Grace" is often played on bagpipes and in services to honor the deceased.

"Amazing Grace" is a well-known Christian hymn. The words were written late in 1772 by Englishman John Newton. They first appeared in print in Newton's Olney Hymns (1779), which he worked on with William Cowper.

John Newton and the lyrics to Amazing Grace

"Amazing Grace"

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promis’d good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

John New­ton, Ol­ney Hymns (Lon­don: W. Ol­i­ver, 1779)

See also: John Newton

John Newton, the author of the lyrics to Amazing Grace, was born in 1725 in Wapping, England. Despite the powerful message of "Amazing Grace," Newton's religious beliefs initially lacked conviction; his youth was marked by religious confusion and a lack of moral self-control and discipline.

After a brief time in the Royal Navy, Newton began his career in slave trading. The turning point in Newton's spiritual life was a violent storm that occurred on this ship one night. Moments after he left the deck, the crewman who had taken his place was swept overboard. Although he manned the vessel for the remainder of the tempest, he later commented that, throughout the tumult, he realized his helplessness and concluded that only the grace of God could save him. Prodded by what he had read in Thomas à Kempis' Imitation of Christ, Newton took the first--albeit small--step toward accepting faith.

These incidents and his 1750 marriage to Mary Cartlett changed Newton significantly. On his slave voyages, he encouraged the sailors under his charge to prayer rather than taunt them for their beliefs. He also began to ensure that every member of his crew treated their human cargo with gentleness and concern. However, it would be another 40 years until Newton openly challenged the trafficking of slaves.

Some three years after his marriage, Newton suffered a stroke that prevented him from returning to sea; in time, he interpreted this as another step in his spiritual voyage. He assumed a post in the Customs Office in the port of Liverpool and began to explore Christianity more fully. As Newton attempted to experience all the various expressions of Christianity, it became clear that he was being called to the ministry. Since Newton lacked a university degree, he could not be ordained through normal channels. However, the landlord of the parish at Olney was so impressed with the letters Newton had written about his conversion that he offered the church to Newton; he was ordained in June 1764.

In Olney, the new curate met the poet William Cowper, also a newly-born Christian. Their friendship led to a spiritual collaboration that completed the inspiration for "Amazing Grace," the poem Newton most likely penned around Christmas of 1772. The lyrics are based on his reflections on an Old Testament text he was preparing to preach on, adding his perspective about his own conversion while on his slave ship, the Greyhound, in 1748.

Newton's lyrics have become a favorite for Christians, largely because the hymn vividly and briefly sums up the doctrine of divine grace. The lyrics are based on 1 Chronicles 17:16–17, a prayer of King David in which he marvels at God's choosing him and his house. Newton apparently wrote this for use in a sermon he preached on this passage on New Year's Day 1773, and for which he left his sermon notes, which correspond to the flow of the lyrics. (He entitled the piece "Faith's review and expectation.")

The song has also become known as a favorite with supporters of freedom and human rights, both Christian and non-Christian, in part because many assume it to be Newton's testimony about his slave trading past.

The hymn was quite popular on both sides in the American Civil War.

Extra verses

In her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe includes an extra, final verse which may have been taken from another hymn:

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’ve first begun.

This additional verse is credited by some to John P. Rees (1828-1900) and became firmly established as part of the hymn from the early twentieth century, appearing in many hymnals.

Cherokee lyrics

While on the "Trail of Tears," the Cherokee were not always able to give their dead a full burial. Instead, they sang a translation (or rather, paraphrase) previously made by Samuel Worcester. For this reason, many contemporary Native American musicians have recorded the song.

Music

As with other hymns of this period, the words were sung to a number of tunes before and after they first became linked to the now familiar variant of the tune "New Britain" of which the composer is unknown and is in William Walker's shape-note tunebook Southern Harmony, 1835.

Shape Note version from 1835.

"New Britain" first appears in a shape note hymnal from 1829 called Columbian Harmony. The melody is believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin; it is pentatonic and suggests a bagpipe tune; the hymn is frequently performed on bagpipes and has become associated with that instrument. This tune seems to have been firmly established as the 'standard' for this hymn after an arrangement of it appeared in a series of popular hymnbooks in the early twentieth century. (See also the versions in the Sacred Harp article.)

Another tune to which it has sometimes been sung is the so-called "Old Regular Baptist" tune. It was sung by the Congregation of the Little Zion Church, Jeff, Kentucky, on the album The Ritchie Family of Kentucky on the Folkways label (1958).

The Blind Boys of Alabama have also helped to popularise a long-standing association to the tune House of the Rising Sun.

Bagpipes

The association with bagpipes is relatively modern; for over a century, the tune was nearly forgotten in the British Isles until the folk revival of the 1960s began carrying traditional musicians back and forth between the British Isles and the United States (where "Amazing Grace" had remained a very popular hymn). It was little known outside church congregations or folk festivals until Arthur Penn's film Alice's Restaurant (1969), in which Lee Hays of The Weavers leads worshipers in singing "Amazing Grace."

Performances and recordings

Owing to its ability to be adapted easily, the song is a popular recording choice. In essence, it has a very basic tune. Singers can then very easily add melismatic phrases, and alter the melody to make it match their own style/genre of singing. It has been recorded by many artists over the last century; All Music Guide lists over 1800 recordings.

"Amazing Grace" was not recorded until 1922, reflecting the penchant of record companies to record marches, standard popular tunes, classical music, and comedic songs and sketches in the years before World War I. By the 1920s, however, many in the recording industry became convinced that traditional music could be profitably marketed to immigrant groups, African-American communities, and white rural southerners. The commercially recorded versions of "Amazing Grace" fit neatly into what the companies at the time termed either their "race" catalogs, or their "hillbilly" and "old-time" catalogs.

The first company to record "Amazing Grace" was Brunswick Records which in 1922 released a small series of recordings of Sacred Harp songs. Brunswick created a special label for this series that incorporated shape-note notation in its design. Other recordings in the Sacred Harp tradition include J. T. Allison's Sacred Harp Singers, Denson-Parris Sacred Harp Singers, and Dye's Sacred Harp Singers.

Several early recordings of "Amazing Grace" feature African-American "singing preachers," the most popular of whom was Reverend J. M. Gates. Gates viewed the song as "one of the good old familiar hymns" that would help his listeners return to the traditional religious values of the past. Gates' first recording for Columbia proved quite popular--dealers ordered 3,400 advanced copies and requested more than ten times that number for his second release.

Owing largely to the popularity of Gates' recordings, dozens of other black preachers made recordings of religious songs and sermons. Other black preachers who recorded "Amazing Grace" included J. C. Burnett (with a more fiery delivery than Gates'), Reverend M. L. Thrasher, and Reverend H. R. Tomlin. These performances usually were preceded by a short statement on the religious significance of the song. As well, the performances often included the practice of "lining out" the song, a traditional method of delivery in both the African- and Anglo-American religious traditions in which the preacher spoke a line of the song and the congregation sang it back.

At the same time that commercial companies were recording "Amazing Grace" with an eye toward profit, folklorists were documenting the song for scholarly purposes. From its inception in 1928 the Library of Congress' Archive of American Folk-Song sent collectors into the field first with wax cylinder recorders, then instantaneous disc recorders. Though somewhat limited in fidelity compared to the equipment used by the commercial companies, these recorders had the advantage of being portable. As such, field recordings could capture a performance in its intended physical and cultural context and often were accompanied by interviews documented on the recording or through field notes. Collectors such as the Lomax Family (John A., Alan, and Ruby T.), Herbert Halpert, Sydney Robertson, and John Henry Faulk made recordings that demonstrate the wide diffusion of "Amazing Grace" through many different communities.

• Between 1970 and 1972, a version by Judy Collins spent 67 weeks in the UK Singles Chart, a record for a female artist, and peaked at number five.
• In 1972, an instrumental version by the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards spent five weeks at number one in the UK Singles Chart; it also reached the top spot in Australia.
• Aretha Franklin recorded a notable version of the song nearly fifteen minutes in length on her live gospel album of the same name.
• In gritty ITV prison drama Bad Girls, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, who played Crystal Gordon, performs an abridged version of the song to silence the other prisoners after Rachel Hicks (Joanne Frogatt) hangs herself in Episode Four of Series One.

Further reading

• Turner, Steve. Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song. HarperCollins (2002). ISBN 0060002190.

External links

• Library of Congress timeline of notable Amazing Grace sheet music and recordings, with audio samples

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