What Makes a Good Hymn? Standards for Considering Texts

We church musicians think often about excellence. We strive for it in all that we do, especially in worship. The musicians must be prepared, the volume levels tested, the organist practiced, and the leader capable of pulling it all together. We spend much time and money on music, robes, and rehearsals for children and youth. We make sure that there are hymnals in the pews and projection slides on our screens. We send out postcards, e-mail messages, and make telephone calls to ensure that our singers are on time; and we make certain there are newsletter articles and announcements to alert our congregations. All of this is in preparation for making congregational worship vital, meaningful, and excellent.

With all this effort, seeing to all these details and striving as hard as we do for excellence, it is curious that we aren't more careful with the songs that we put into the mouths and hearts of our people in worship. We sometimes sing songs in worship that not only lack excellence, they are simply poorly written texts. In selecting congregational songs, we may get carried away with the music -- the beauty of a melody, the way the rhythm and harmony interplay, the sound of the artist or group who wrote or performed the song on a CD, or the historical significance of the hymn writer or the occasion that prompted the writing of the hymn. We may allow these musical considerations to override our good judgment in selecting texts for singing.

How do we judge the quality -- the excellence -- of a text? What standards shall we use? Simply put, what makes a hymn or song good or bad? What criteria should we use in deciding whether a hymn, song, or chorus is worthy of including in the people's worship of God? Here are twelve suggestions.

1. Overall Excellence. There should be a sense of perfection in the whole. Nothing should stand out or jar the senses. There should be a blend or unity of the different elements of the hymn so that nothing calls undue attention to one particular element. In general, do the words communicate the thoughts in the best way, using language that is understandable and not contrived or flowery? The text should not stretch for a quality of wittiness, nor use language that calls attention to the text rather than to the thought being expressed. Perfection is rare, but should remain a goal.
   
2. Equality of Text and Tune. There are many considerations in matching text with tune. We even speak of the "wedding" of words and music, indicating that the two separate elements are now joined to form a new single work. As in a marriage, sometimes one of the partners can dominate and overshadow, or they can work together as equals, mutually supporting and enhancing the qualities of the other.
   
3. Exactness of Rhyme. The discipline of an exact rhyme is lost in many contemporary popular musical styles. It has become acceptable to use near-rhymes to pair words that have the same vowel sound but different surrounding consonants (make/fate), and false-rhymes, the pairing of words that have approximately the same or similar vowel sounds (can't/sent). In some styles, such pseudo-rhymes may even outnumber the true rhymes. The best texts are those that exhibit exactness of rhyme, with vowel and consonant sounds mirroring each other. Hymn writers and poets work hard at such exact duplication of sounds in their rhymes. Lack of exact rhymes is usually an indication of modest poetic abilities or a willingness to sacrifice literary standards.
   
4. Textual Accent. Every hymn or song has both musical and textual accents, and it is best when the two occur simultaneously. For example, the three pick-up notes that begin the refrain of "How Great Thou Art" are clearly preparatory notes that lead to the musical climax on the downbeat of the next measure. In that short little phrase, we would want to see the important word appear on the accented downbeat so that textual and musical accents are aligned, and that happens with "Then sings my SOUL." When text and music accents are not in agreement, the effect on the singer is unsettling, and there may be confusion about what is really important in the text. It is difficult to maintain that unity of musical and textual accent in multiple stanzas, but the best hymn writers work hard to do so.
   
5. Consistency of Rhythm. This is another characteristic of well-written hymns and songs that is increasingly ignored in some contemporary styles. The goal is that each phrase and stanza will contain the same number of syllables. This is known as the meter of a hymn, and most hymnals contain a metrical index in the back that groups songs together by their meters. This allows for the exchange of texts and tunes. For example, "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee," and "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling" all have the same meter and may be freely sung to each other's tunes. A well-written text consistently maintains its rhythm (or meter) throughout its stanzas, while metrical irregularity between stanzas can lead to confusion and frustration on the part of the congregation, especially when it is singing only from projected lyrics. A well-written text does not allow for the appearance of extra words and syllables that must be accommodated by additional melody notes or by the division of note values.
   
6. Symbols and Metaphors. First, the text should have some. Hymn texts are literature; they are poetry. Symbolic and metaphorical content is a literary device that can add to the appreciation and meaning of the text. Their meaning, however, should be easily grasped, understood, and applicable by the singer, rather than stretched or contrived. Such devices must always contribute to insight and understanding.
   
7. Emotion and Sentiment. Some texts seem sterile, cold, distant, too intellectual, lacking in any expression of human feeling and emotion. Others seem to be unable to rise above sentimentality and emotion -- they are vehicles for prompting, manipulating, or expressing feelings and emotions. Good texts will accommodate something of both, but always in moderation and balance.
   
8. Expressing the Inexpressible. Most worshipers are not theologians. We are not poets, nor are we psychologists. And yet, we come together in worship out of a need and expectation to experience the presence of God, to hear from God, and to speak to God, in praise, thanksgiving, confession, sacrament, silence, and spoken and sung word. It is not enough for others to speak and sing words on our behalf -- preacher, liturgist, and choir. We must speak and sing the words for ourselves, yet we don't naturally know the words to use. It is the gift of the hymn writer to know those words and to place them in our mouths in the singing of the hymns. The hymn text gives us thoughts and words that we would ordinarily be unable to articulate and express on our own.
   
9. Sound Theology and Scriptural Basis. Because hymns are so central in giving voice to the congregation's expression and experience, the texts must always be theologically and biblically sound. They must never sacrifice integrity for the sake of rhythm or rhyme.
   
10. Clear Reference. Texts may often make reference to historical, biographical, or cultural points. Such references to people, events, and conditions may hold great meaning in one time and place, but become obscure and meaningless in another. It is the task of the hymnal editor to update or clarify such references where possible, to broaden or generalize them, or to eliminate them. That task sometimes falls to the music leader.
    
11. Hope. Hymns may be written in response to a specific event -- the September 11 terrorist attacks, the space shuttle explosion, violence in the Middle East, a devastating tsunami or earthquake. Texts generated from such occasions of death, suffering, despair, pain, and misery should move us to expressions of ultimate hope, comfort, and healing that come from God's grace. An excellent example of this quality is Shirley Erena Murray's hymn, "God Weeps," available in numerous recent hymnals and songbooks.
    
12. Unity. Good texts begin with each stanza expressing a coherent, identifiable thought or theme with successive stanzas doing the same. However, there is a cohesion and unity to the whole in that one stanza flows out of, relates to, or complements the previous one. The text's entirety reveals a plan that ultimately expresses a greater thought or truth than any individual stanza.

The best hymn texts exhibit these twelve characteristics, and they do so while using language that is simultaneously natural, often conversational. They use language that raises us out of our suffering, grief, and emotions. In his own time and manner, there was no one better at this than Charles Wesley.

Take note that these twelve characteristics for judging the quality of texts for congregational singing have not included a single word about musical style. These characteristics will be present in the best texts regardless of the style of the accompanying music. There are good and bad texts in traditional hymns, praise choruses, and all the contemporary musical styles in use in today's worship services. These characteristics may be applied across the various musical styles. Some of the characteristics (numbers four, five, and seven) may be related to musical style. The style and quality of the music, in interaction with the text, will promote or inhibit these characteristics. It is the task of the composer, the director, and the performer to take care in such matters.

In his 1761 hymnal, Select Hymns, John Wesley offered his famous seven "Directions for Singing." While all seven are worthy of study and consideration, his seventh direction is particularly useful in all situations, all denominations, all worship and music styles:

Above all sing spiritually. Have an eye to God in every word you sing. Aim at pleasing him more than yourself, or any other creature. In order to do this attend strictly to the sense of what you sing, and see that your heart is not carried away with the sound, but offered to God continually; so shall your singing be such as the Lord will approve here, and reward you when he cometh in the clouds of heaven.