Judging a Bad Hymn

Until rather recently, Westerners believed that pure music is meaningful apart from extra-musical texts, narratives, or images.  Plato and Aristotle had a lot to say about music's meaning and use in affecting society.  The early Church Fathers, taking up the baton, condemned pagan musical practice using the logic they inherited from the philosophers and combining it with sound Biblical reasoning.  Throughout its history, the Church has maintained that music is meaningful and thus ought to be closely regulated.  It is only in the last couple of centuries that Western opinion has become skeptical of the idea of musical meaning.

In our present situation the Church is at best reluctant to make musical judgements.  At worst, the Church is unable to make such judgements at all.  One of the primary areas in which we've abdicated judging musical meaning is how we match texts and tunes inappropriately.

For example, the following text represents the direst spiritual situation any human could experience: 

Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night,
Jesus, I come!
Into Thy freedom, gladness, and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee!
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my want and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee! 

This is a beloved hymn text and for good reason: it describes the sinner's lost condition apart from the Savior and does so with clear imagery.  Yet when it comes the music, the hymn fails.  This is because the tune has nothing to do with bondage, sorrow, night, sickness, want, or sin.  The tune is breezy, and carefree.  Combined with this text, the hymn is flippant and makes light of a grand and serious subject.  This is not to say that their isn't happiness in the text--the text IS happy, but there is a difference between flippant happiness and the happiness of relief from hardship.  The tune sounds like carousel music from a really old one.  There's nothing wrong with music like that or feeling nostalgic listening to it.  It simply fails to convey the text in an accurate and meaningful way and in that sense the hymn fails.  

God calls us to real abundant human life in Christ.  Our hymns--text and music together--ought to portray our life accurately and sincerely.