This song of gladness

This Song Of Gladness

Beautiful Saviour by Stuart Townend

Verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, greater chorus –

yes, a structure to fit the song’s ideas:

verse worship, work, ordinary time,

and chorus echoing something more.

Less sung now than it used to be in our church,

unexpected that Sunday in the Spring.

New out of hospital, I sang it loud,

loud as recovery let me sing.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying higher than before.

True, nothing inherent in this structure,

which I’ll call A A B A B B dash.

It will not beautify each pairing known

but may serve others, like this song.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying higher than before.

Biblical language, resonant names of God,

let’s say clear day, let’s say vista,

let’s say journey which has made.

We felt it raise us, we felt it let us see,

with our gathering, yes, our gathering

flying high, high over all.


This poem was originally written in response to one of the prompts in Jo Bell's 52: write a poem a week.  It was for number 42, to write about a song.  I chose to write about Stuart Townend's worship song 'Beautiful Saviour'.  After the rediscovery described in the poem, Clare and I spent a Sunday lunchtime talking about the song's structure.

"It will not beautify each pairing known" -- we thought a bit about whether the structure in its most basic terms -- AABABB' -- would have much effect on every pair of things put into it. We tried a couple:

• Portugal, Portugal, Finland, Portugal, Finland, Finland in winter
• 60s nurse film, 60s nurse film, cement mixer, 60s nurse film, cement mixer, cement mixers

and concluded that the structure had no magical power to be inherently uplifting.

The poem has now found publication in Orbis 191, spring 2020.  It has benefited somewhat from suggestions by editor Carole Baldock.

Regarding church music more widely, I continue to add to my Google Maps list of places in the British Isles that have given their names to hymn tunes, with 273 at the last count.  During lockdown I have developed an addiction to Ralph Vaughan Williams' tune King's Lynn.