About a year ago, I went to the Third Sunday Charlestown Shapenote Sing in Charlestown, MA. It was a cozy little sing that turned out rather large, with about 25 to 30 singers present at one point. The songs we sang came from the obligatory Sacred Harp, both the Denson and Cooper revisions, Norembega Harmony and Northern Harmony. There were color-coded loaner book bags; the colors of the bags matched the book spines. It was the most wonderful bit of organization I’ve ever seen.
This post is about Russia, which was the song I led at that sing; I only forgot to bring the altos in once! It is maddening that the order that each section comes in during most fugue tunes does not correspond to the seating arrangement of the four sections. Anyway, it was the first time I led a song alone. It was hectic, horrifying and fun; it was certainly made easier by the wonderful front-row tenors who are helpful and know that I didn’t know what I was doing. I still don’t know what I’m doing.
An early version of Russia, for those unfamiliar with the song, can be found on this facsimile of the page it was on from an old, 1800s edition of The Sacred Harp. In the current version of the Harp it is numbered 107 and has only the first two verses out of the original six. The tune itself didn’t seem to have changed between the two editions; as far as I can tell the tenor line is the same and I am too tired to go fetch a book for a direct comparison.
The reason why I knew Russia very well is because it’s one of my students’ favorite songs. Where I teach, we have all-school sings every week. We sing songs ranging from sea shanties and old English folk tunes to Beatles songs and contemporary African anthems of peace. There are several shape note tunes in the collection, Russia being one of them. It is also the most accessible shape note tune out of those in the collection. The others I remember off the top of my head are Ocean and Northfield, and both of these are much harder to sing than Russia; I could never hit the high notes in Northfield as a tenor (since I really should be singing bass, as I found out recently).
The interesting this is that while in the new edition of The Sacred Harp took the first two verses of the original Issac Watts poetry, the verses we sing in school are the first, third and fourth.
In The Sacred Harp, 1991, the text is Russia is
My spirit looks to God alone;
My rock and refuge is his throne;
In all my fears, in all my straits,
My soul on his salvation waits.
Trust him, ye saints, in all your ways,
Pour out your hearts before his face:
When helpers fail, and foes invade,
God is our all-sufficient aid.
In the Putney School songbook, however, it is:
My spirit looks to God alone;
My rock and refuge is his throne;
In all my fears, in all my straits,
My soul on his salvation waits.
False are the men of high degree,
The baser sort are vanity;
Laid in the balance, both appear
Light as a puff of empty air.
Make not increasing gold your trust,
Nor set your hearts on glitt’ring dust
Why will you grasp the fleeting smoke,
And not believe what God has spoke?
All these verses are equally religious, in some sense. They all refer to God and a believer’s dependence on God. But the third and fourth verses bring the focus back to lessons about living—lessons about humanity. Although the ideas are Christian they are the kinds of ideas that are just good ideas in general. They are more about being good people than good Christians. They are especially appealing if you are not in the top echelon of society; I know I appreciate it, being a teacher. An energetic song with lyrics that people can identify with works marvelously in a community singing environment.
To balance out the slight lack of religion in the middle two verses, let’s talk about the last two verses from the original poetry. They were included in the previous edition of The Sacred Harp as I previously mentioned.
Once has his awful voice declared,
Once and again my ears have heard,
All power is his eternal due;
He must be feared and trusted too.
For sovereign power reigns not alone,
Grace is a partner of the throne:
Thy grace and justice, mighty Lord,
Shall well divide our last reward.
The fifth verse brings in the idea that God not only is salvation and a mysterious guide to being a good person, but also something to be feared. This doesn’t quite fit the energy and mood of the song; it makes everything darker. The last verse does a little to fix that, but not too much. They would not go over well in a diverse group of singers. They also are hard to sing. The first line of the fifth verse and the third of the sixth don’t fit into the music very well. In fact, I haven’t figured out a good way to sing them. Solution? Don’t sing them! If it doesn’t sound good and isn’t enjoyable to sing, why bother?
And why is Russia named Russia anyway? I don’t know. Google doesn’t seem to know either, since the longest page on the song is mine, and I already admitted that I don’t know anything.
In any case, the kids love this song. It’s got a relatively easy melody and many chances for them to sing really loudly. And it sounds really good too. They request it at least every other week; most of the time they just yell out “Russia!” near the end of every sing. The problem there? I tend to sing very loudly during this song and I usually have to teach for over two hours straight right after singing it. This is not a good thing for my voice. Guess I just have to remember to carry cough drops with me every Thursday.