The Gospel Song

In 1875 Moody and Sankey sold cheap songbooks into their meetings, and sacred song became a publishing business.

Related

RomanticStrophic FormHarmonium

In 1875 Moody and Sankey sold cheap songbooks into their preaching meetings, and sacred song became a publishing business.

Time and place

Britain and the United States, 1873 to 1875. Moody preached and Sankey led the singing, first in industrial British cities and then in Chicago and Philadelphia. Meetings rented halls or tents, seats were cleared between services, and songbooks were sold at the entrance so that listeners could take them home. The books appeared one after another with the two evangelists' names on the cover, and the series soon took the title Gospel Hymns.

What happened

Sankey sat at a small organ and led the singing, his voice modest and his words clear, the texts telling stories of personal salvation. A meeting usually opened with several songs before the sermon, and the singing gathered strangers into a crowd. Most songs were strophic, each verse followed by a repeated refrain that a congregation could join after two hearings. The books printed words, melody and four-part harmony together at low cost and in large runs, with indexes, subject headings and numbers the leader could call out. Publishers gathered the songs used at the meetings into series that grew thicker each year, and Sunday schools and prayer meetings adopted them. A volunteer choir sat behind the platform and caught the refrain after each solo.

What changed

Sacred song became a commodity that could be sold and copied, and also the largest form of collective singing. The refrain structure later entered country music, soul and pop as a template for catching the ear. The songbook displaced the denominational hymnal at the meetings, and publishers and evangelists grew interdependent. The song leader became a star, and the organ made the music portable to any tent. A campaign could therefore be reproduced in any city, with the songbook as its standard programme.

Listen for the turn

Begin with The Ninety and Nine, a solo narrative with the organ supplying only a harmonic frame and the ending resting on a repeated refrain. Then He Is Coming, its refrain rising phrase by phrase so a congregation can join. Finally Jesus Loves Even Me, a tune close to a children's song, repeated until no score is needed. Before the turn church song belonged to choir and organ; afterwards anyone with a book could sing in a tent.

Related

The turn belongs to Romantic, with the form at Strophic Form, the instrument at Harmonium, and an earlier tradition of collective singing in shape notes.

Sources

• Grove Music Online 的 Gospel hymn 条目，用于核对桑基与慕迪的布道会出版
• Sandra Sizer, Gospel Hymns and Social Religion（Temple University Press），用于核对歌本与城市复兴运动

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.