But words will never hurt me — NOT

This post was written by Charles Jonah, and posted on August 16, 2007 | Filed Under music and religion | Double-click any word for more info | View other posts by Charles Jonah | | For info on this author, visit http://www.sdgmusic.org/voices/2007/07/31/introduction/

We all remember “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” I am sure. Of course, as we get older we know this isn’t true; words can affect how we think of ourselves and also how one thinks of one another.

There has been considerable effort in the last few years to modify hymns (remember, hymns are the words – a particular set of of words might be used with multiple melodies) to make them “gender inclusive”. The critical word that is most often modified is man. In old English, man clearly meant a human; wyrman and wyfman would mean a male human or female human (other variants exist of these). Today this of course is not the case. The suitability for “chairman” generic was accepted by 67% of a panel (52% of the women and 72% of the men – your assignment is to figure out what proportion of the panel was female) in a study cited in the article on “man” at answers.com).

Unfortunately, when this is done in music, it can lead to some unfortunate musical consequences. For example, in the spiritual, singing “Gods got the whole world in his hands” instead of “He’s got the whole world in his hands” is awkward – the “he” (or “she” blends with the next sound. I have heard this finessed by alternating “he” and “she”. A similar example comes in the gospel hymn “His eye is on the sparrow” – The sound stop that you get with substituting “God” for “His” is not musically nice. Of course, as a male, I am much less sensitive to gender inclusiveness issue and more with the musical effects. However, two women at our Church this last Sunday were less than thrilled with the change to create the “God’s eye” version.

Years ago, I was on a committee looking at hymnbooks and there was a strong feminist on the committee. She was very enthused about making these changes, except for the hymns she particularly loved, where she wanted them to stay the same.

What can or should be done? Legally, any music under copyright cannot be changed without the permission of the author. Some authors have no problems with changing words; others, including the well-known and popular composer Daniel Gawthrop, has stated that the words must stay the way he wrote them. If you don’t like the words, pick another song is his sentiment. Another example revolves around the tune to “Edelweiss” from “Sound of Music”. In the ‘70’s there was a benediction response written to use the tune. The composer, Richard Rodgers, made it known that this was unacceptable; one could use “Edelweiss” only with Hammerstein’s words.

Clearly, in practice one could change the words for copyright music without permission. It wouldn’t be legal; I won’t presume to say whether it would be moral. There is a lot of good music that could be substituted. In older music, clearly it is legal. One must consider carefully if the substitution upsets the musical flow of the work and if it does, do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.