600 - You Call Us Out to Praise You

Tune: Briggs

This is kind of a fun tune, don't you think?  Patrick Wedd has a real gift for weaving a catchy melody with interesting harmonies.  Once at a diocesan ordination at Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, Matthew Larkin included this hymn to the tune Thornbury #444.  When I asked him about it he said that he personally likes Briggs #600, but the people at the cathedral get pissed off at new tunes, and it ain't worth fighting with them.  The fact that I still remember how much I enjoyed singing on that occasion is testimony to how well the text of "You Call Us Out to Praise You" fits with Thornbury.  The two tunes have very different feelings to them.

Check out Thornbury below, and see what you think.

That being said, I've used this hymn several times with Patrick's tune, and it really works. Sometimes I rehearse it with the congregation before the service, and I point out that each line begins with a note on the organ, just exactly like "For all the saints". Once they understand that there's going to be a grunt from the organ at the beginning of each phrase, they're all set. Thanks for this super tune, Patrick! You're an amazing musician in so many ways.