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mormongandhi
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mormongandhi
The Problem with the Battle Hymn of the Republic…
…as sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but the visuals of this particular rendition of the Choir’s performance are rather distressing…
How can such a powerful song be so completely misunderstood?
I personally think this song, especially when sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, ought to be reclaimed by all latter day satyagrahis, because:
The lyrics of the Battle Hymn of the Republic appear in Martin Luther King, Jr.‘s sermons and speeches, most notably in his speech “How Long, Not Long” from the steps of the Montgomery, Alabama Courthouse on March 25, 1965 after the 3rd Selma March, and in his final sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop“, delivered in Memphis, Tennessee on the evening of April 3, 1968, the night before his assassination. In fact, the latter sermon, King’s last public words, ends with the first lyrics of the Battle Hymn, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
- Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
- He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
- He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
- His truth is marching on.
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- (Chorus)
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- Glory, glory, hallelujah!
- His truth is marching on.
- I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
- They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
- I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
- His day is marching on.
- I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
- “As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
- Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
- Since God is marching on.”
- He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
- He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
- Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
- Our God is marching on.
- In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
- With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
- As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
- While God is marching on.
- He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
- He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,
- So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,
- Our God is marching on.
Other trivia: ”The Battle Hymn of the Republic” is an American abolitionist song, written by Julia Ward Howe in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly on 1 February 1862, that became popular during the American Civil War.
In 1960 the Mormon Tabernacle Choir won the Grammy Award for Best Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus. The single record had reached #13 on Billboard’s Hot 100 the previous autumn.
