RockStarKevin

Battle Hymn

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free!

Posted on April 25th, 2008 under friday freeforall • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback

11 Responses to “Battle Hymn”

1
Josh:
April 25th, 2008 at 9:10 am
“In later years, when this song was sung in a non-military environment, the clause ‘let us die to make men free’ was sometimes changed to ‘let us live to make men free’” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_Hymn_of_the_Republic).
2
rockstar:
April 25th, 2008 at 9:12 am
So, do you like the change?
3
jedidiah:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Hey Kev, since you created this post and linked to that video, how do you feel about The Battle Hymn of the Republic?
4
rockstar:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I like the song.
I always have.
what more can I say?

In terms of lyrical changes, I don’t usually like them. Example: I don’t like the changes made to “Come thou fount” either.
5
jedidiah:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Why don’t you like lyric changes?
6
rockstar:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:42 am
would you decide that the Mona Lisa’s smile should be bigger and then make changes? no…

my feeling is that changes either 1)dumb it down, or 2)change the original meaning and tone.

it’s the same thing with paraphrase versions of the Bible. thou they can be good at times, i would rather just stick with the a literal translation (and i’d rather just learn Greek, but admittedly, i’m too lazy, or just not good with languages).

how about you, Jed. how do you feel about lyric changes?
7
Peter:
April 25th, 2008 at 10:54 am
I am not sure about the lyric changes, but I do feel uncomfortable when I heard this song. Where in the New Testament does it tell us to fight for political freedom. And even more disturbing to me is the idea that a fight for political freedom is somehow associated with Christ’s death directly. I think that political freedom is very important, but I don’t believe that Christ died for us so that we could kill others in the name of political freedom.
8
rockstar:
April 25th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Clarification question:
Are you saying we should fight for freedom, but don’t use Jesus as the justification?
9
Peter:
April 25th, 2008 at 11:03 am
I would say that we should work for freedom, but not use Jesus as the justification. I am not trying to parse words, but I am not really ready to say that we should fight for freedom with military and at the same time I am not ready to say that we should never fight for freedom. I am ready to say that using Jesus as an excuse to go to war in the name of providing freedom is wrong.
10
jedidiah:
April 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
I think lyrical changes can, at times, be stupid; but I also believe that they can be beneficial. It depends upon why the changes are made, how they are made, and the skill with which they are made.

Addressing your two points: if a lyrical change “dumbs it down”, then the change hasn’t been made with much skill. However, when using that argument just make sure that you are not equating “dumbing down” with simplifying or clarifying; just because something is abstruse does not give it greater intellectual merit.

Second, your point on original meaning and tone is important to consider. But what if the accepted meaning of the words have changed since the original writing to the point that using those original words changes the meaning? Then is it more important to you to have the original meaning or the original words? Also, which is more important to you: the meaning the artist intended to put into a piece or the meaning the reader/viewer/listener gets out of the piece?
11
rockstar:
April 25th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
hmmmm. ponder ponder ponder…

So I just read this.

now i need to ponder more….
hmmmmm.

interesting stuff… i had no idea..