Sabaton “Livgardet”

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Well, I may never keep a straight face while singing “Fairest Lord Jesus” ever again. Maybe

They’ve got good voices for the melody.

The history video for those interested:

16 thoughts on “Sabaton “Livgardet””

  2. I’ll be thinking of 40 legions of angels captained by Archangel Michael, surging into battle as He points with His Hand.

  4. So… how are you keeping a straight face singing “Fairest Lord Jesus” after Frozen? Check out Cantus by Eatnemen Vulie (sp?) which is supposed to be where Frozen got its inspiration. The melody is definitely present at points on the movie. I am seriously confused.

    • I suspect that in our “post-Christian” society, people don’t automatically connect “folk tune” with “hymn tune.” Especially if they didn’t grow up in a church that used older hymns and Spirituals. (I’ve seen Frozen, but was more concerned with helping Sib and Sib-in-Law finish canning green beans and chow-chow than in watching the film with Red 2.0, so I missed most of the music.)

      That, or someone shrugged and said, “Great tune, no one will notice it’s also a hymn if it’s orchestrated this way, or the words changed that way.”

      • Contributor 3, most folks’ exposure to Church Music/hymns really freaking sucks. Like, “old” stuff is from the 80s, and deliberately modern or Boyfriend Jesus stuff.

        • There’s a reason why the church where I sing is, oh, three hymnal “updates” behind the rest of the denomination and has not budgeted for new hymnals. This past year, the newest hymns I’ve heard and sung were “Here Am I” and “Eagle’s Wings.” Most dated from before 1930. When times get hard, people want the old, solid hymns.

    • There are only eight notes*.
      And not all progressions are pleasing to the ear.
      Melodic lines will necessarily be similar to something that has gone before. Frozen didn’t really jump out at me as being a direct lift. (Unlike the above song, or Enya’s “Once We Had Gold”, albeit from a different hymn.)
      The mess surrounding music copyright frankly scares the beep out of me. It was bad enough before the “Blurred Lines” fiasco, where a song with a different melody, different instrumentation, different rhythm at a different rate, and different lyrics about a different thing was found to be plagiarized because of “the vibe” (conveniently left undefined).
      Unless you’re protected by a large company with many lawyers, your only protection is to flagrantly rip off songs in the public domain.
      Otherwise, it’s Calvinball.

      I’m mostly joking when I say the entire point of Vatican 2 was to get access to the Anglican hymnal.
      But only mostly.

      I hate that many of the mainline Protestant churches have abandoned the great hymns of the past (almost as much as I hate that they’ve abandoned sound theology).

      *For most practical intents and purposes.

      • That, too. I loved the original hymns, since Lutheran summer camp in the 70s. Anything by Watts, Luther, the Wesleys. Perfect, IMOP.

  5. The “Cantus” song I referenced above is directly using FLJ above the chanting. After you hear it there Frozen is more obvious. They are a Norwegian group so I really wondered why this particular tune was getting a Scandinavian workout. But the Sabaton song is a blast.

  6. AAAGH! What an earworm you gave me! And how long it took me to find what I was remembering, because I KNEW I’ve never sung “Fairest Lord Jesus” or “Beautiful Savior,” either one.

    It’s this Omer Westendorf song, which was a staple of the old 1970’s Catholic Missalettes, always found in the hymn section in the back.

    God’s blessing sends us forth
    Strengthened for our task on earth
    Renewed in soul and renewed in mind
    May God with us remain, through us the Spirit reign
    That Christ be known to humankind. [Originally “all mankind.”]

    God’s news in spoken word
    Joyfully our hearts have heard
    O may the seed of God’s love now grow
    May we in fruitful deeds
    Gladly serve others needs
    That faith in action we may show.

    We by one living bread
    As one body have been fed
    So we are one as we share this food.
    How gracious to behold
    All people of one fold
    Who ever seek each other’s good. [I don’t remember this verse, so it might have been changed a lot, or they only printed two verses.]

    Grant in this age of space
    Triumph of your truth and grace
    Lord, you alone are unchanging truth.
    Bring us unto your side
    Preserve and ever guide
    Your ancient Church in ageless youth. [I don’t remember this verse much, but I do recall “in this age of space” from somewhere.]

    • Oh, crud. It turns out that Omer Westendorf was from Cincinnati, and died in 1997. WLP (World Library [of sacred music] Publications) was originally his garage. Now I feel terrible, because I like a lot of his songs and lyrics, and I had no idea he wasn’t from Europe or something.

      On the bright side, hymnary.org claims that he was one of the first Catholic lyricists writing hymns in English. Which obviously is several centuries off, and is also freaking hilarious if you ever looked at a Regency or Victorian Catholic hymnal from back in the day.

        • Oh, man. Also he wrote a Mass setting back in the 1950’s which used the “Dragnet” theme song in the Kyrie. And he was the guy behind the non-fondly-remembered People’s Mass Book. But he also did the St. Bonaventure’s choir. What a mix.

          Yup, there were bad/dumb things going on before Vatican II. Absolutely.

  7. I’ve always loved that line “grant in this age of space…” and had forgotten that that was also The Tune under discussion. 😉

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