You know when you wonder if it's just you? Last week I recalled some of my personal memories of the school hymn; specifically those I experienced as a child growing up in England in the mid 1980s. It was a fairly niche subject I know, but the response we received proved that my nostalgia was widely shared. Like me, thousands of people have fond memories of sniggering behind their hands during that "I was cold, I was naked" line in When I Needed a Neighbour, or sighing with despair at the sight of Kum By Yah on the overhead projector. Suggestions came flooding in* of classics I'd missed, and so it only seemed right to bring you possibly the most unlikely second album ever conceived.
So breathe deep, and allow the imaginary smell of that recently-disinfected school hall floor to rush back into your nostrils. Picture Mrs Robertson glaring at you for not having your arms and legs crossed properly, and hear the uneven plonk of the volunteer piano player to begin plinking in your head once more. It's time for another trip down assembly lane...
1. "Who built the ark?"
If there's one part of the school hymn development process that was lacking, it was almost certainly the theological quality control department. Stepping aside from the sticky question of why we made our children sing songs about Noah in a worship context, this memorable ditty about Genesis 6 & 7 thought it was being clever by adding a mathematical counting element to the story. The problem is, in doing so it completely wrecks the whole 'pairs of animals' concept at its heart. Why as small children did we not wonder why the world is not now overrun by giraffes, of which the song suggested there were 49 on the ark, or why the whole thing wasn't downed by the presence of 36 elephants?
2. "Stand up, clap hands, shout thank you Lord"
This song offered so much potential for fun, chaos and noise making, which is probably why in my school, standing, clapping and shouting during the song were all banned. That's a bit like telling preschoolers they can't do any of the actions in The Wheels on The Bus. It had the potential to be a favourite; instead for me it just carries bitter memories of repression and wondering why the writer couldn't find a better rhyme for "sky" than a rather theatrical "oh my!"
3. "The ink is black, the page is white"
An early victory for secular humanism, this song has precisely zero Christian content. Instead it made a bold bid to put worthy (read, boring) statements about good citizenship at the heart of the school assembly, and that may or may not have been why we all hated it. If you were ever the OHP monitor and you didn't at least try to subtly swap this for a different song while the Head wasn't looking then you were widely regarded as a school traitor.
4. "Where have all the flowers gone?"
Sometimes headteachers clearly got a bit confused between the terms 'worship' and 'folk music'; which is probably why we were often subjected to long, dreary issue songs that were originally intended to be accompanied by Real Ale. Now, clearly this Peter, Paul and Mary classic is an important plea about the ironic and pointlessly cyclical devastation of war, but at nine years old, we didn't understand or care about that. We cared about Thundercats, playing our Commodore 64s and seeing how many jawbreaker chewing gums we could fit into our mouths. Not a favourite. By comparison however...
5. "Autumn days"
Some songs are wonderfully idiosyncratic; some were clearly just written on an acid trip. The jury is still out on how this Harvest Festival classic came into being – all that stuff about silk inside chestnut shells and jetplanes meeting in the air to be refuelled was more John Lennon than John Wesley. This compelling call to gratitude in childhood was always great fun though, and you'd have taken it over The Ink Is Black every day of the week. Special for so many reasons, not least because it taught you to be thankful for "shoes so comfy though they're worn out and they're battered... and the taste of apple pie."
6. "Would you walk by on the other side?"
One of several songs from a sort of Good Samaritan sub-genre, this mixed a dull tune with a beautiful call to action which made sense even to small children. We forgave the hymn its dreariness because, like Jesus' famous story about stepping in to care for the injured outsider, it made strong emotional sense. It asked searching moral questions of all of us – what would you do if someone called for aid? Would you walk by on the other side? Would you be afraid? It was the song that taught us that there were people in need, that "starving children cried", and demanded: WILL WE NOT PROVIDE?! Hang on there a moment, I think I have something in my eye...
7. "The wise man built his house"
This one was just asking for trouble. The experienced headteacher would never risk unleashing the cacophony of noise and chattering that this song would create; they'd simply never get the assembly back on track. Still popular today, it's the musical retelling of another classic parable, and comes with fantastic 'whooshing' actions which created a great cover for passing notes, whispering to your neighbour or giving a wedgie to the year two in front of you.
8. "If I had a hammer"
Yet another Pete Seeger song about love, justice, togetherness and freedom (he must have been fun at a party); we all loved it because, ironically, it conjured up images of violence. Show me a small boy who doesn't love hitting things with hammers, and I'll show you my collection of broken cherished possessions. Quite how one hammers out love between one's brothers and sisters is still a profound mystery, but it's the sort of sentiment that these days people put in shabby chic picture frames.
9. "Streets of London"
Oh, Ralph McTell. I'm still not sure what you were doing in my school assembly, but it's you that I have to thank for all those childhood nightmares about being made homeless. Not that I'm complaining; I'm sure my deep appreciation of social justice issues was founded in the crucible of singing "one more forgotten hero in a world that doesn't care." It was a little bit defeatist for its potentially idealistic audience, not to mention the redemptively-prone corporate worship context, but that didn't stop our Head, and apparently many others, from slotting it in for a bit of citizenship input when he couldn't find the 'Ink Is Black' transparency that we'd hidden.
10. "If I were a butterfly"
If there's a better line in school hymn history than "if I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I'd thank you Lord for my fuzzy wuzzy hair", then I've never heard it. Those words represent the highest peak in a metaphorical Manhattan skyline of great lyrics in this popular tune, which also included an octopus thankful for his fine looks, a kangaroo hopping over to meet the Almighty, and a wiggly worm grateful, of course, that he could squirm. The chap who wrote this behemoth apparently launched a successful international ministry off the back of it. Now, just as back then, every day's a school day...
*Alright, we had a number of tweets. Thanks to Steve Holmes, Darren Jalland, Jon March, Gail Adcock and Kate Middleton for contributing suggestions for this piece.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. You can follow him on Twitter: @martinsaunders
