Why does Vajda hate punctuation? We just don't know. Even when the text is clearly a rhetorical question ("How does the creature say ___" is a repeated motif), no question marks. Modernism!

The text is a mix of Biblical imagery, beginning with animals (Jesus alludes to sparrows in mentioning God's care for everyone, Jonah was swallowed by a "big fish" that could be a whale) and going increasingly abstract.

There are a lot of diacritics you have to deal with if you want to transliterate non-English text. Spanish has Ns with tildes. German has Us with umlauts. Korean has Os with the curvy U-things on them (this might not be the technical term).

Now we're onto Taiwanese and superscripts. The music is described as a "Pinpo melody," except that the n is written as a superscript next to the i. From my very ill-informed Wikipedia browsing, I'm guessing that this means the vowel is pronounced more "nasally." (In languages like French, whether or not a vowel is nasal can change the meaning of a word.) The music is also attributed to "Taiwanese Seng-si," but I don't know what that means either.

The melody itself is another pentatonic one, but in a minor key and with a pretty big range, so I'm guessing it would sound rather different from a "southern" US pentatonic melody. It's a simple pattern but it's emerged in lots of different cultures!

Also, to those of you joining us due to the quarantines, hello! I try to jump around from section to section so I don't get too bogged down in any one theme. The "tags" at the bottom will link you to archives of posts on a similar theme, whether it's the category they're listed under in the hymnal or one of the repetitive topics that comes up in the blogging.

How's the text?

Quite lovely, actually! There are great thematic images--God as creator, God as liberator (the Exodus story is often alluded to in the Easter narrative, although we don't want to appropriate Jewish scripture yada yada), bread and wine imagery in and beyond communion, and God in the person of Jesus. Good rhyming, good imagery.

Then why is this song not one of your favorites?

The melody is...not that good. There are times when "accidentals" (notes not expected, given the key you're in) break up monotony and make things interesting. Like, "Jerusalem," which we just did, had a couple of them, and that melody is a deserving classic. However, the accidental F natural in the third line seems very jarring to me, and hanging onto the C-sharp in the fourth line is also dissonant. So close and yet so far.

Is this a good fit for the category?

I mean, it's literally in the name, but it seems to be a pretty good fit for stewardship as well.

Who wrote the text?

John Arlott, apparently.

Is he still alive?

No he died in 1991, apparently.

So who owns the copyright then?

"Trustees of the late John Arlott." As opposed to his namesake who is still alive? Very specific.

Is the alternate tune any better?

That one is only the main tune for a communion song we haven't gotten to yet, and I'm not very familiar with either, so I don't know.

What does this have to do with creation?

It talks about baptism, which is...water...??? Humans in every stage of their lifespan are part of creation???

When is it set in "your" life?

I always interpreted it as referring to confirmation. Childhood/immaturity is in the past tense, and "you now belong" to the Lord. But marriage (hypothetical! an "if," not a "when," which is nice) is in the future. So that seems to be the natural religious milestone in between.

Who is the narrator?

Again, I always thought of it as referring to a child's baptismal sponsor watching them come of age. It's usually a family friend who's like a generation older; they were there for the child's birth and "rejoiced the day [they] were baptized," and will probably be around to mentor them through marriage/adulthood. And when the kid grows up and dies, they'll still be there (in heaven) with "one more surprise."

But like...this could also refer to God. Which is perhaps the more obvious choice? I think it's more boring, I like my interpretation. But yeah, God is with us through all stages of life.

Is the alto part really boring?

Caveat: I don't think I've actually ever sung this one either. That being said, the first couple lines feature a whole lot of staying on middle C.

Are the feminine rhymes actually feminine?

Yes and no. One verse is endeavor/ever/never/forever, which aren't really based on masculine rhymes, but do share some meaning overlap.

races/traces/spaces/embraces is definitely a "made feminine by sticking an S on everything" copout. I will give them credit for how tight these rhymes follow on each other, however, this isn't very common in English.

Is it more common in Norwegian?

Maybe, but I'm not really up on my Norwegian rhyme schemes either.