STLT#367, Allelu, Allelu

I need to begin with a prayer for those harmed by the mass shooting in Las Vegas – I don’t have words yet for my sadness and rage. I only have this Kyrie. Please take a moment to listen with me:

Amen.

Okay. Now on to today’s hymn, which is a shocking juxtaposition: it is a cheerful alleluia.

So here’s a strange thing: why is it that on this page, the two parts are identified by gender, but on the next one, Now Let Us Sing (tomorrow’s hymn), the two parts are not identified at all?

I say you go to your hymnals and just gently cross out “men” and “women” and let people sing the part that fits their voices. In fact, I’ll show you how it’s done:

Lower Voices:   Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia!
Upper Voices:   Sing and rejoice.
Lower Voices:   Allelu, allelu, allelu, alleluia!
Upper Voices:   Sing and rejoice. sing and rejoice.
Lower Voices:   Alleluia!
Upper Voices:   Sing and rejoice
Lower Voices:   Alleluia!
Upper Voices:   Sing and rejoice
Lower Voices:   Alleluia!
All Voices:      Sing and rejoice.

See how easy that is?

Anyway – I first learned this as “praise ye the Lord” as a Girl Scout grace, but in my research it appears that the not-alleluia lines have had any number of words applied to it. And as there’s no clear source of where this came from (good ol’ Anonymous, writin’ our ditties), I’d say no one will care what we sing here.

It’s a fun, kid-friendly song to sing, and for some, memories of summer camps gone by will flood in. I’m glad this showed up here today, to ground me a little after too much horrific news this morning.



One response to “STLT#367, Allelu, Allelu”

  1. I also learned this as a fun church group/camp song, with the words “Praise ye the Lord” and a slightly different melody line in a few places. Most fun of all, however, was the way we did it. The songleader would divide us into two groups (sometimes it was male/female, sometimes not). One group would be the “Alleluia” group and the other would be the “Praise ye the Lord” group. Each group would stand when they sing their part, and then sit back down. The up-and-down singing was great fun, especially when people would mess up in the middle (when the “Praise ye the Lord” group sings their line twice) — it always generated happy, joyous laughter.

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