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Nearer, My God, to Thee

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For other uses, see Nearer My God to Thee (disambiguation).
1881 sheet music cover

"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a 19th century Christian hymn by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19,[1] the story of Jacob's dream. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."

It is most famous as the alleged last song the band on RMS Titanic played before the ship sank.

Lyrics

The lyrics to the hymn are as follows:[2][3][4]

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Chorus
There let the way appear steps unto heav'n;
All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv'n;
Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,
Chorus
Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Chorus
Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee,

A sixth verse was later added to the hymn by Ed­ward H. Bick­er­steth, Jr. as follows:[2]

There in my Father’s home, safe and at rest,
There in my Savior’s love, perfectly blest;
Age after age to be, nearer my God to Thee.
Chorus

Text and music

The verse was written by the English poet and Unitarian hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams (1805–1848) at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton, Essex, England, in 1841. It was first set to music by Adams's sister, the composer Eliza Flower, for William Johnson Fox's collection Hymns and Anthems.[5]

In the United Kingdom, the hymn is usually associated with the 1861 hymn tune "Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes, named for a village near Wakefield, England, where Dykes had found "peace and comfort".[6] In the rest of the world, the hymn is usually sung to the 1856 tune "Bethany" by Lowell Mason. Methodists prefer the tune "Propior Deo" (Nearer to God), written by Arthur Sullivan (of Gilbert and Sullivan) in 1872. Sullivan wrote a second setting of the hymn to a tune referred to as "St. Edmund". Other 19th century settings include those by the Rev. N. S. Godfrey,[7] W. H. Longhurst,[8] Herbert Columbine,[9] Frederic N. Löhr,[10] Thomas Adams,[11] and one composed jointly by William Sterndale Bennett and Otto Goldschmidt.[12] In 1955, the English composer and musicologist Sir Jack Westrup composed a setting in the form of an anthem for four soloists with organ accompaniment.[13]

RMS Titanic and SS Valencia

"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is associated with the RMS Titanic, as one passenger reported that the ship's band played the hymn as the Titanic sank. The "Bethany" version was used in the 1943 film Titanic and in the Jean Negulesco's 1953 film Titanic, whereas the "Horbury" version was played in Roy Ward Baker's 1958 movie about the sinking, A Night to Remember. The "Bethany" version was again used in James Cameron's 1997 Titanic.[14]

Wallace Hartley, the ship's band leader, who like all the musicians on board went down with the ship, was known to like the song and to wish to have it performed at his funeral. He was British and Methodist, and would have been familiar with both the "Horbury" and "Propior Deo" versions, but not with "Bethany". His father, a Methodist choirmaster, used the "Propior Deo" version at church for over thirty years. His family were certain he would have used the "Propior Deo" version, and it is this tune's opening notes that appear on Hartley's memorial.[15][16] However, a record slip for a 1913 Edison cylinder recording of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", featuring the "Bethany" version, states that "When the great steamship 'Titanic' sank in mid-ocean in April 1912, it was being played by the band and sung by the doomed passengers, even as the boat took her final plunge."[17]

"Nearer, My God, to Thee" was also sung by the doomed crew and passengers of the SS Valencia as it sank off the Canadian coast in 1905 – indeed it may be the source of the Titanic legend, since the Titanic claim is made by a Canadian passenger who could not have actually heard the band playing.[18]

Quotations in musical compositions

A dramatic paraphrase of the hymn tune was written for wind band by the Danish composer, Carl Nielsen. His version includes a musical rendition of the collision between boat and iceberg.[19] The composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert, moved by the Titanic tragedy, wrote six works based on the "Bethany" setting, including an organ fantasia.[20] "Bethany" is also quoted in Charles Ives's fourth symphony.[21] The French organist Joseph Bonnet wrote "In Memoriam – Titanic", the first of his Douze Pièces, Op. 10, based on the tune Horbury. It was published the year after the Titanic sank.[22]

The hymn even made its way briefly onto the operatic stage. The singer Emma Abbott, prompted by "her uncompromising and grotesque puritanism" rewrote La traviata so that Violetta expired singing not Verdi's Addio del passato, but Nearer my God to Thee.[23]

Other associations

Another tale, surrounding the death of President William McKinley in September 1901, quotes his dying words as being the first few lines of the hymn.[24] At 3:30 pm, in the afternoon of September 14, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, numerous bands across the United States played the hymn, McKinley's favorite, in his memory.[24] It was also played by the Marine Band on Pennsylvania Avenue during the funeral procession through Washington and at the end of the funeral service itself,[24] and at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey, London.[25] It was also played as the body of assassinated American President James Garfield was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio, and at the funeral of former United States President Gerald R. Ford.

The Confederate army band played this song as the survivors of the disastrous Pickett's Charge (in the Battle of Gettysburg) returned from their failed infantry assault.[26] The Rough Riders sang the hymn at the burial of their slain comrades after the Battle of Las Guasimas.[27] A film called Nearer My God to Thee was made in 1917 in the UK. "Nearer, My God, to Thee" is sung at the end of the 1936 movie San Francisco.[28] In the Max Ophuls 1952 film, Le Plaisir, the French version of the hymn, 'Plus près de toi, mon Dieu,' is sung in a country church, which causes sobbing among a group of visiting Parisian courtesans."[29][30] The title of the hymn is also the title of a painting by physician Jack Kevorkian.[31] William F. Buckley mentions in the introduction to his 1998 book, Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, that the title was inspired by "Nearer My God to Thee".[32]

At the beginning of The Simpsons Movie (2007), Green Day is seen playing a concert in Springfield on a barge. The audience pelts the band with stones. As the barge begins to sink, bassist Mike Dirnt quotes the film Titanic, uttering Hartley's line, "Gentlemen, it's been an honor playing with you tonight."[33] The band members all take out violins and begin to play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" while sinking. This Titanic gag was also used in the film Osmosis Jones, but the line is changed to "Gentlemen, playing with you has been the greatest pleasure of my life."[citation needed] In the South Park episode, "Summer Sucks", the boys play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" during the pandemonium after the giant snake firework is lit.[34]

Ted Turner, speaking shortly before the launch of CNN, promised that, barring technical problems, "We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event.... and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God to Thee' before we sign off."[35]

References

  1. ^ Genesis 28:11-12
  2. ^ a b Nearer, My God, to Thee at CyberHymnal
  3. ^ Nearer, My God, to Thee at Hymnsite.com
  4. ^ Nearer My God to Thee at Christian Music
  5. ^ Taylor & Francis Group (2003). A Historical Dictionary of British Women. Routledge. pp. 3 and 171. ISBN 1857432282.
  6. ^ The Musical Times, January 1898, p. 22
  7. ^ The Musical Times, October 1853, p. 270
  8. ^ The Musical Times, March 1860, p. 223
  9. ^ The Musical Times, December 1865, p. 192
  10. ^ The Musical Times, December 1874, p. 730
  11. ^ The Musical Times, February 1895, p. 102
  12. ^ The Musical Times, March 1902, p. 19
  13. ^ The Musical Times, May 1955, p. 1
  14. ^ Bevil, J. Marshall. "And the Band Played On ..." Article analyzing which version was likely played at the sinking of the Titanic]
  15. ^ Tribute to the Titanic's band and discussion of what was played
  16. ^ Biography of Wallace Hartley, the Titanic's bandmaster
  17. ^ Dethlefson, Ronald. Edison Blue Amberol Recordings, 1912-1914. APM Press: Brooklyn, 1980, p. 53. The cylinder is numbered Edison Blue Amberol No. 1647.
  18. ^ Baily, Clarence H. "The Wreck of the Valencia", in Pacific Monthly, March 1906, p. 281, quoted by Richard Howells in the The Myth of the Titanic, ISBN 0-333-72597-2
  19. ^ "Orkestermusik", Carl Nielsen Selskabet, accessed 14 January 2010
  20. ^ The Musical Times, January 1973, pp. 33–34; and May 1973, p. 489
  21. ^ Ballantine, Christopher. "Charles Ives and the Meaning of Quotation in Music", The Musical Quarterly, April 1979, p. 174
  22. ^ "Douze Pièces pour Grand-Orgue, Opus 10". Michael's Music Service website, accessed 17 June 2011
  23. ^ The Musical Times, May 1891, p. 274.
  24. ^ a b c Excerpt from McKinley biography
  25. ^ The Musical Times, October 1901, p. 665
  26. ^ Lanning, Michael (2007). The Civil War 100. Sourcebooks, Inc. p. 244. ISBN 140221040x. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help)
  27. ^ Brown, Theron and Hezekiah Butterworth. The Story of the Hymns and Tunes (1906)
  28. ^ Soundtrack to the film San Francisco at the IMDB database, accessed 11 January 2010
  29. ^ YouTube
  30. ^ Douin, Jean-Luc. "Terre promise", La Bobine, accessed 14 January 2010
  31. ^ Kevorkian painting
  32. ^ Buckley, William F. Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, Introduction. Harvest Books, 1998 ISBN 0-15-600618-9
  33. ^ IMDB list of "memorable quotes
  34. ^ "Summer Sucks" episode of South Park at Southpark.wikia.com, accessed 11 January 2010
  35. ^ Quote from Ted Turner
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