Vital Sparks: Ye heedless ones

In “Behold the smiling, happy land,” I started to look at the secular songs in The Sacred Harp, noting that the book’s lyrics are so overwhelmingly Christian, that it’s easy to overlook the secular songs. We looked at patriotic songs (such as 137 LIBERTY) and sentimental ballads (such as 359 BRIDE’S FAREWELL). Let’s look at some other secular songs, and answer two questions: Should we count 1991 edition’s 254 ROSE OF SHARON as a secular song? And: Is the 2025 edition of The Sacred Harp more secular than the 1991 edition?

Memento mori songs

Sometimes when people ask me what is different about Sacred Harp singing, I tell them that we sing about death a lot. Death and religion make a good pairing, as in (as one of many examples) 418 REES:

There is a house not made with hands,
Eternal and on high;
And here my spirit waiting stands,
Till God shall bid it fly.

But there are a number of songs in The Sacred Harp which don’t explicitly mention God, or other Christian beliefs and practices, which I will unremarkably call memento mori songs, Latin for “Remember, you must die.” This is a practice that predates the Christian movement; for example Plato quotes Socrates in The Phaedo as saying, “the one aim of those who practice philosophy in the proper manner is to practice for dying and death.” The list is a relatively long one, but consider one, 130 THE OLD GRAVEYARD, which is new to the 2025 edition:

Former friends, oh, how I’ve sought them,
Just to cheer my drooping mind;
But they’ve gone, like leaves of autumn,
Driv’n before a dreary wind.

Boast ye not of tomorrow,
For you know not what the day may bring.

Death has laid them down to slumber;
Solemn thought to think that I
Soon will be one of that number,
Soon, ah soon, with them to lie.

A solemn thought indeed! As I grow older, I naturally have known many people who have died, and this is a constant reminder that I, too, will soon “be of that number.” Of course, as a Christian, I can sing this with hope, both for myself and others; and as a warning, as in 522 YE HEEDLESS ONES:

Ye heedless ones who wildly stroll,
The grave will soon become your bed.

Or 

Let’s live so in youth that we blush not in age.

As 136 MORALITY says.

It’s also a reminder to “give me the roses while I live,” as 340 ODEM reminds us (ODEM also talks about “a pilgrim’s days,” so perhaps it’s passes the religious test).

Parting songs

There are a number of farewell songs that are not strictly religious in The Sacred Harp. Of course, there are religious parting songs as well. 254 WARSAW and 382 COSTON share the same secular lyric:

Dear friends, farewell! I do you tell,
Since you and I must part;
I go my way, and here you stay,
But still we’re joined in heart.
Your love to me has been most free,
Your conversation sweet;
How can I bear to journey where
With you I cannot meet?

But 69a MINISTER’S FAREWELL, which also has this verse, includes a second, religious one:

I trust you’ll pray both night and day,
And keep your garments white,
For you and me, that we may be
The children of the light.
If you die first, anon you must,
The will of God be done;
I hope the Lord will you reward
With an immortal crown.

So, as with our other categories, we can see these songs embedded in a Christian matrix. It’s natural to sing these songs, too, as essentially religious.

Miscellaneous other songs

The 1991 song 334 O COME AWAY (discussed in my essay, “‘O Come, Come Away’ is gone away”) is, strictly speaking, a temperance song. The temperance movement sprung from Christian roots, but there was a large secular component. 334 doesn’t match my religious test (to my surprise). 

The morality song found only in the 1991 edition, 413 THE LOVED ONES, enjoins the hearer to paternal respect, especially as we remember he must die as well:

Be kind to thy father, for when thou wert young,
Who loved thee so fondly as he?

On the face of it, 448b THE GRIEVED SOUL reads secular:

Come, my soul, and let us try
For a little season,
Ev’ry burden to lay by,
Come and let us reason.
What is this that casts thee down?
Who are those that grieve thee?
Speak and let the worst be known;
Speaking may relieve thee.

In fact, when I led this at the All-California Convention in 2006, someone came up to me and said, “You must be a therapist.” But this is an excerpt from Joseph Hart’s “Dialogue Between a Believer and His Soul,” which records an internal dialog of a person struggling with a sense of a cold, dark, and dead faith while seeking to be revived by Jesus.

212 SHARON is another somewhat ambiguous song. Again, it can be read as strictly secular:

How pleasant ’tis to see
Kindred and friends agree,
Each in his proper station move,
And each fulfill his part
With sympathizing heart,
In all the cares of life and love.

But it’s scriptural superscription places it in a Christian context: “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!” from Psalm 133. I, at least, think of Psalm 133 when I sing it, but it’s more about the analogy of singing well together as a picture of living well together.

And that brings me to 254 ROSE OF SHARON, present in the 1991 edition, but removed in the 2025 edition. Again, on the face of it, this song doesn’t mention God or any religious practice. As I mentioned previously, it’s an anthem based on the biblical book The Song of Solomon 2:1-11 (also known as The Song of Songs). Most commentators I have read note that, with the exception of one disputed phrase, God is not mentioned at all in the entire book of The Song of Solomon. This is a secular book given canonical status by both Jews and Christians, and both Jews and Christians have analogized the Song spiritually in various ways. My judgment? I think Billings primarily meant his music to be more art music than religious music, and I think it therefore tips into the secular category. But of course, as with all these so-called secular songs, they are embedded in this Christian book, surrounded by other Christian songs and scriptures. 

The Christian nature of The Sacred Harp

I’ve noted time and again that the lyrics of The Sacred Harp are, for the most part, Christian. An essay on “Religious songs in The Sacred Harp would be very long indeed! Let’s try to put an estimate of what percentage of the book is religious in both the 1991 and 2025 edition; and ask the question, which some perhaps feared, whether The Sacred Harp is on a trajectory towards being a more secular book. Using my operational definition of a secular song, I count 24 secular songs in the 1991 edition, and 22 in the 2025 edition. This is essentially the same number, especially if you don’t want to count 254 ROSE OF SHARON as a secular song. The 2025 edition has more songs in total, though (554 in the 1991 edition, and 590 in the 2025 edition). Thus, the percentage of secular songs has actually gone down about one half a percent. In either case, the number of religious songs rounds to 96% — certainly indicating this is still an overwhelmingly Christian book. Worries about its secularization are overblown. Of course, the reasons that people write music in the shape note style, the reasons others sing it, and the contexts in which it is sung vary widely; I am talking about the contents of the book itself. 

These very large percentages should remind singers of this music who sing it for largely secular reasons to respect the tradition out of which the music springs. They should also remind singers of this music who sing it largely religious reasons to feel comfortable, on the one hand, that “our” book is still very much a Christian book, and, on the other hand, to remember that not everyone will be familiar with the idioms and ideas of the texts. Of course, one of the purposes of  the Vital Sparks newsletter is to explore the ideas and contexts these texts in depth.

As always, I look forward to your comments and corrections.