How Can We Keep From Singing?

After my daughter was born, I couldn’t keep from singing. Sure, there weren’t many other ways to entertain her, as our hands were literally full, and it seemed to be one of the better ways to get her to sleep.

But that wasn’t really why. In truth I felt a deep need inside, to express the joy I felt. That came out as singing.

Mostly I sang love songs because I was falling in love. But I also sang hymns. When she was on my front in the baby carrier, ear next to my chest, the long deep notes of hymns seemed to calm her, especially if accompanied by a walk.

All this came as a surprise. I’m not really much of a singer. It was nice to have an appreciative audience, but I’m not one to sing for performance. I also didn’t think I liked hymns. When they are big and bombastic I still don’t enjoy them. But that’s not the only way to praise God through song.

It came as a surprise to me as a Quaker, because I used to think of singing as not really part of Quaker tradition. That was until I read the sources more carefully.

Early Quakers Sang

Most Friends know that George Fox said he couldn’t sing, and was most unimpressed when a priest told him to cheer up by smoking tobacco and singing psalms. Tradition has also preserved the story of his companion, Solomon Eccles, who publicly burned his musical instruments in London.

But Eccles also clarified that Friends approve of “Musick that pleaseth God”. From the writings of later generations of Friends, this would seem to refer to song emerging from a personal experience of Spirit, rather than simply “mouthing the words of another.”

Fox didn’t like empty words of any sort, spoken or sung. In a passage from his Journal where he seems to condemn singing, he quotes Isaiah 1 in which God calls out the hypocrisy of people engaging in all kinds of worship practices whilst failing to stand up for the oppressed.

And early Friends sang. On being beaten in prison, Fox found he “was moved in the Lord's power to sing” which made the warders go away. In the course of being banished under guard from a town in Scotland, his comrade James Lancaster was moved to sing too. In Ireland, Fox records that Friends “broke out into singing, even with audible voices, making melody in their hearts.”

Early Christians sang

William Penn said that Friends sought to be “Primitive Christianity revived”, and early Quaker attitudes reflected those of their forbears. Church fathers warned against use of musical instruments in worship. In the earliest detailed description of a church service, music isn’t mentioned.

There is no New Testament reference to musical instruments in use in worship either. Where they are mentioned it is usually in the course of metaphor. While there may have been a concern that instruments could prompt responses misunderstood as the Holy Spirit, they aren’t prohibited either.

Singing, however, is mentioned multiple times. On learning she is pregnant, Mary sings. Jesus and his followers sing following the last supper. Paul and Silas sing in jail. Both Paul and James encourage their hearers to sing. Some have suggested that Paul’s letters include song fragments.

Most Quakers Sing

Friends around the world today sing, especially in Friends Churches, but in “silent” meetings too. The unprogrammed meeting in Nairobi closes with a song. In Tokyo there is a monthly singing session after meeting. AFSC General Secretary Joyce Ajlouny once told me that at home in Ramallah, hymns would be called mid-worship, usually including a Song of Peace.

And at FWCC events, where Friends come together from different countries and Quaker traditions, we sing. World Plenary Meetings have had songbooks for at least 50 years. I was part of the Spirit-led process of putting together the last one, with Friends from eight different countries.

At the recent FWCC Section of the Americas gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona we sang too, especially the old hymns and Spirituals: Wade in the Water, Balm in Gilead, Amazing Grace. In the moment their relevance didn’t need spelling out. It was there in the heartfelt harmonies.

As they echo in my mind afterwards, I hear a soulful affirmation that these sounds of hope and freedom reflect an approach to religion which is true. We don’t need to fixate on the imperial and nationalist forms of Christianity. This yearning for liberation forms part of the fabric of faith.

How can we keep from singing?

When I sing with Friends who sing, I find my way to the same still small place that I reach in a mostly silent Meeting for Worship. Now I sing on the way to meeting, and sometimes on the way home too. It makes the cool refreshing spring of expectant waiting worship all the more satisfying.

I’ve also found myself setting lines from scripture to the tunes of well-known folk songs. Usually it begins by arising in me, then I sit down with different translations seeking words that fit both the tune and which prompt an inward peace as to the meaning of the passage.

Psalm 131 references a parent calming a child, so I sang it to a lullaby, All Through the Night, and found myself feeling rather than thinking the text. Singing John 1:10 in the minor key of Scarborough Fair helps me feel the words too: “He was in the world…and the world knew him not”.

Putting the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) to the protest tune Bella Ciao, drew out the radicalism of the words, in a way much obscured by Latin choir versions. Love is Patient, Love is Kind fits well to Aura Lee (Better with different words as Love me Tender) raising it from a human to a divine love song.

Sometimes play I them with a ukulele. I have prayerfully questioned whether God minds being worshipped in this way. In this I’ve received an uncharacteristically prompt response: “Relax: it’s the sincerity in your heart which is the point.”

I imagine my Welsh chapel-going ancestors smiling at this Quaker descendant of theirs unable to keep from singing. Perhaps that’s part of it. But song has long been a part of Quaker life. I’m glad to be part of sustaining it.

Tim Gee is the General Secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC), in the World Office. He has previously worked for Britain Yearly Meeting, Christian Aid and Amnesty International. He has written four books: ‘Counterpower: Making Change Happen’ (2011), ‘You Can’t Evict an Idea: What can we learn from Occupy?’ (2012), ‘Why I am a Pacifist’ (2018) and ‘Open for Liberation: An activist reads the Bible’ (2022).

The Backhouse Lecture will be presented from 19:30 AEST on 7 July, and a video recording is hoped to be uploaded on the Australia YM website soon after. Tim’s folk-hymns will be included as an epilogue in the printed version.