This is on NCR? My mind is blown.

Even a stopped watch.....

Remember to look for more gems of truth, rather than merely rejoicing in this one.

I guess I've only ever heard HRKD to ST GEORGE'S WINDSOR.

It should be noted, however, that revision of metrical hymn texts was not uncommon in the past. Else most of us would still be familiar with welkins at Christmas.

St Anne?

The original tune of Hail Redeemer, King Divine is KING DIVINE, written in the 1930s for the new Liverpool cathedral which was never completed in its original form.
I've never heard it (in the UK) to any tune but this, written by Charles Rigby, 1901-1962

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1drtim65OA0

One example (of many):

"Come, thou long-expected Jesus" is a strong Advent hymn (in my estimation), well-known to two different tunes, STUTTGART and HYFRYDOL. Interestingly enough, the metres aren't the same, the former being 87.87, the latter being 87.87.D. Moreover, HYFRYDOL is used for various other texts, including the "strong:texts "Alleluia! Sing to Jesus" and "Love divine, all loves excelling" (the latter perhaps better known in some circles to BEECHER).

I just don't buy into the One Text <~~~> One Tune as a blanket principle. There are too many texts and tunes that don't fit this paradigm.

I generally (or, at least, conditionally) 'buy into' Chuck's assertion regarding the often indefensible 'one tune-one text' paradigm. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it gets in the way.

I think that there would be a justified rebellion of grand proportions if some nut foolishly offered a text other than 'O come, all ye faithful' to Adeste fideles. There be many other such 'sacred cows' in our repertory that are components of our cultural DNA. Bianco da Siena and RVW's 'Come down, O love divine'-Down Ampney comes to mind.

I've never heard 'Come, thou long-expected Jesus' to Chuck's Hyfrydol and hope that I never do. All things being equal, it is/would be a poor, very poor, marriage of text and tune. Other tunes may or may not compliment this hallowed text.

Hyfrydol itself seems remarkably versatile, working very well with several texts which Chuck mentions - but not with all that are mangled, glass slipper-like, onto it. I must say, though, that having last summer fallen under the spell of Braenwern I am no longer enchanted to sing 'Love divine...' to anything else; indeed, it makes (at least to me) 'Love divine...' sung to Hyfrydol seem like 'old hat'. Still, though, 'old hat' is not necessarily (though it sometimes is) 'bad hat'.

Then, there are a few tunes, such as Moscow and Eerie (known by some of us as Ass's Bray), that should never have been invented.

Unfortunately, the motivation of many for switching tune-text relationships is not aesthetical or musical, whereby one seeks a different musical expression for purely artistic reasons. Those benighted souls who switch tunes just because 'the people don't know' the one given are short-changing their people, assuming that they are idiots, or just don't want to bother teaching. Here, we are dealing with shut minds - very shut.

We see this at work even in hymnal publications. There are a number of poorly adapted tune-text pairings in Worship IV which attempt to make the most of well known tunes (In Babilone comes to mind) by marrying them to texts which result in what can only be called aesthetical jokes.

Many hymns can be well-served when paired with an unusual tune that truly brings out something in the text that 'the other tune' didn't. Most of the time, though, such motivations are not at work, and too many people who dabble in the index of tunes should have someone tear that index out of their books for them.

...stunned silence followed.

How fitting that there was silence.
How even better that it was stunned!

(And Cross of Jesus has to be one of the most deliriously, angelically, gracious melodies in all tunedom. It couldn't be anything other than English.)

...lack of being able to remember...

Well, they could always get out a hymnal and look one up.
Or, better yet, the breviary ought to include such tunes or their names... some do.

The amazing thing about 'Amazing Grace' is that people seem to relish calling themselves wretches. Is this how we thank the God of love for creating us? Of course, we all feel wretched at times, and do wretched things, but that is different from thinking of God's creations, in his very own image, yet, (not to mention redeemed at great cost) as wretches. This doesn't seem to me to be spiritually, theologically, or psychologically healthy.

Well, if you had been the captain of slave ships and had a Saul-on-the-road-to-Damascus experience in West Africa, wretch is hardly adequate. The thing is, many people do have an experience of feeling wretched for divers reasons without going into full-blown Calvinistic TULIP mania, as it were. The text is not about being wretched - it's about being redeemed. (The complaint about "wretch" tends to echo the reaction of Unitarian and Congregationalist Boston Brahmins of the 19th century to what they considered a fad for Episcopalianism among some of their brethren - that all that kneeling et cet. was at the very least indecorous.)

For better or for worse from a Catholic perspective, the Anglican Reformation had one profound cultural effect on the English-speaking world: it made it an emphatically hymn-loving world. (It's not for nothing that any English-speaking worship that lacks metrical hymnody appears to seem lacking to most. It's that deep in the warp and weft of the Anglosphere. It's probably the one thing I'd consider as "inculturation" in an English-Roman liturgical context. Not pop music forms - they are not nearly as deep as a cultural matter.) And Amazing Grace will endure long after all of us are gone from this mortal plane.

.... we are also not to see ourselves as Haugen paints our identity...

I never sing these foolish and words. In fact I don't sing most of the trash that is "performed" at our parish.

Gather us in – the rich and the haughty,
gather us in – the proud and the strong;

Now I believe I am what I'm singing
Give me the courage to turn down this song.

Someone at a recent liturgy meeting here actually suggested

Suggesting=Meddling with the Liturgy

As at least one priest who offered Mass before Vatican II, it was so much faster when you could whisper on the inhale as well as the exhale....

Uh, check several of the mainstream hymnals. Both pange linguas, as well as the corpus christi sequence, are on the same chant (and probably a few others). Multiple songs are sung to Adoro te devote.

I use the 1:1 rule only with the more popular hymns. Newer hymns I'll use different tunes for sometimes. Some songs go well with multiple tunes, and some tunes (LASST UNS ERFREUEN) go well with a bunch of texts. I use both St. Louis and Forest Green for "O Little Town of Bethlehem", but have used Forest Green also for "Come Sing A Home And Family".

(The purple is meant for sarcasm, am i right? Still new to this forum)

And, come to think of it! Why not, instead of having to learn so much music, just sing the entire Messiah to the tune for 'Comfort ye', or, if you prefer, 'Hallelujah!'.

(For most of my life I have felt that if I could do something, then anyone could do it.
We have, on the other hand, too many priests and even musicians, not to mention parents, whose motto is 'if I can't [or don't want to] do it, then it follows that nobody can'. - this is the syndrome which we have noted on other threads whereby one projects his and her own ignorance or negativities onto others.)

This is a good article, thanks for sharing. Regarding the content and text of hymns there is an old church axiom, as the church prays she believes, right? Should we not apply this belief to our hymns. As the church sings, she believes?

particularly for those who are not trained musicians.

I've found those who have the least musical training and aptitude have the most difficulty with the idea of one tune having different texts to it. The only way it works with them is if they don't notice that it's the same tune as some other hymn.