Guest post by Matthew R. Lee
Music is an over looked and underused teaching method. It’s unfortunate that songs are not used more often to teach multiple age groups. With a few exceptions the only memorized text I recall from my teenage years are song lyrics. I have a catalog of lyrics by Paul Simon, Midnight Oil, R.E.M., U2, Guadalcanal Diary, and a horde of others lodged in my mind. For better or for worse, these songs helped shape my worldview. Not only the lyrics but also the sounds, the moods, and the intensity of the music.
What many readers of Wheats and Tares share in common are the primary songs we sang at church and at home. They too have helped shaped our worldview. Songs from the Children’s Songbook are an inescapable part of the English speaking Church and far more memorable that most in the Hymnal.
For many, these songs were their first portable statements of doctrine and belief with lyrics far more important to comprehend than, “the boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart.” How do we view these songs as adults? Do we see in them signs of our current and past doctrinal understanding? Why have some of them remained near the surface in our memory while others have faded?
As a child of divorced parents singing “Daddy’s Homecoming” was difficult. My daddy wasn’t coming home yet I knew that a ‘daddy’ was coming home for most of the kids in Primary. I didn’t like to sing it but through it, and other songs about family that were just as uncomfortable, I learned something important. I learned that in the Church we teach the standard and not the exception. I was not part of the ideal family. I was the exception on the outside looking in. Singing “Daddy’s Homecoming” appeared to be silly bliss for others yet I had a hidden burden they didn’t see or feel. For them it wasn’t a song of longing like “I Need Thee Every Hour.” It was a song recognizing the joy of having. A song of object permanence that for me wasn’t permanent. Yet that was okay.
I don’t recall singing Love is Spoken Here in Primary but as an adult, I appreciate the line “mine is a home where every hour is blessed by the strength of priesthood power.” I read it as recognition of the blessings that can come into every home because of the restoration of the gospel rather than a statement on “priesthood power” personified solely in a father. Baptism, the Sacrament, and covenants made in the Temple can bless home and family “every hour” with or without a father who is a Melchizedek priesthood holder in the home. The family structure as outline in the Proclamation on the Family, including the sealing ordinances, is the ideal, yet the absence of a father who holds the priesthood does not cause the heavens to “withdraw themselves.”
I also appreciate the words “with father and mother leading the way.” The leading is equal. One is not the assistant of the other.
What are some of your experiences with Primary songs? How have they shaped your views of family life and other relationships?
Wheat & Tares 
Coming from one of those “ideal” homes, it never occurred to me as a child that there was anything other than what we sang about, although I don’t recall thinking about the meaning of the words too much either.
As an adult though, starting when I was the primary president, I did realize that there were some children who these songs would be painful for. Those whose parents were going through a divorce probably could not sing about eternal families with as much joy and fervor as those whose families were still intact.
And, as an adult, I felt guilty while singing some of these songs as lullabies to my children, knowing that I was/am not up to the ideal they preach about. However, I also realize that as I sing these songs as lullabies to my children, I can be better by doing the things the songs teach.
I love the Primary songs. I’ve been the chorister several times, and it’s one of my favorite callings. But several years ago, when we did the Primary program on Temples, we had an 11-year-old girl who came from a broken home who would sit in the back and weep whenever we sang “I love to see the temple.” We tried to emphasize in sharing time that no matter what our family looked like, HF loved them all, and that the children could look forward to building their own families based on eternal principles. But still, the tears. I never felt like we reached a satisfactory solution to that one.
Now in my early 50’s I still remember Sister MacDonald, our Primary Chorister of my youth (and I didn’t start going to Primary until I was 8) and many of the songs we sang.
I remember Elder Maxwell’s commenting once that today’s Primary Songs have more doctrine and less “fluff” (my word, not his). I hope that’s true.
I agree with BiV — Primary Chorister is one of the best callings ever! I’ve had great fun watching some really gifted choristers in our Primary who could teach the music and the doctrine together.
(I’ve never been able to enjoy I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home since seeing Carol Lynn Pearson’s skewed version in her musical The Dance.)
How people view a particular song not only depends on life circumstance (i.e. divorce) but also on what their views are about the gospel.
If one has lost a testimony in the church singing “follow the prophet” as a lullaby to ones children probably would feel a little disingenuous.
Paul,
I think this may be the quote from Elder Maxwell:
“In my Primary days, we sang “ ‘Give,’ Said the Little Stream” (Children’s Songbook, 236)—certainly sweet and motivating but not exactly theologically drenched. Today’s children, as you know, sing the more spiritually focused “I’m Trying to Be like Jesus” (Children’s Songbook, 78–79).”
(Neal A. Maxwell, “Remember How Merciful the Lord Hath Been,” Ensign, May 2004, p.44)
I miss the old Primary songs. The songs now seem more like a method of indoctrination. Perhaps that’s good, perhaps that’s bad. But I actually did like the fun songs.
Thanks, Ginger. I think your experience in primary is accurate, most kids don’t think about it and that’s okay. It’s not part of their worldview. I was the odd kid out 30 years ago, but today the numbers have shifted. We must teach the standard and be aware of who we are teaching.
I agree with you about learning from the primary songs as an adult. I would do better to ponder them more often and evaluate whether or not my home matches the core message, and if not why not.
MikeS,
I like the song “Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree” but I have no idea why it qualifies as a Primary song. What is the message of the song? Maybe that sometimes things that look real and are fun today dream about are not real? That unrelated items can be used as symbols for anything the author chooses.
For me the message was just fun. That’s all. A fun song with fun hand actions.
Matthew:
I have no idea either, but I thought it was fun. 🙂
Born In Vernal,
There are 8, 9, 10 and 11-year-old boys in primary who weep privately because they don’t have a dad at home to take them on the annual father’s and son’s campout. It can be a difficult thing for a boy to pick up the phone and make call after call to try to find someone to tag along with.
Thinking about Ginger’s comments and yours, the reality is that loads of kids do not live in homes that mirror the primary songs. How many of the kids in primary, who couldn’t relate to what the 11-year-old girl was experiencing, will look back a decade or two later after their parents have been divorced and question whether the words of the songs really mattered?
For me I had to, and I still do, look at them as the goal rather than the daily reality. Can my children really say they have parents who are “kind and dear”? Overall, am I teaching them to “trust and obey” and are the things my and my wife teach them “crystal clear”? Most of these are questions for parents not for kids to evaluate. How is a child to know the clarity of a life lesson verses one that is cloudy? They are wise and more insightful than I think most of us give them credit for, and they see hypocrisy shining like the sun.
Sorry “Bored in Vernal”. That’s what I get for not typing BiV. 🙂
5: Yes!
6&8: I think there’s a place for “fun” songs, too — those nearly 10 year old boys have to move at some point or they’ll explode!
I also didn’t like singing “I’m So Glad When Daddy Comes Home.” I didn’t feel that way about it at all. I was scared of my dad and basically tried to avoid being around him when he came home. It’s still nearly impossible for me to understand when kids can have that kind of relationship with their dad. And I’m 26.
Matthew, very nice post. thank you
Even though we teach the ideal, it doesn’t make it any easier on children victimized by the choices of adults around them. It seems that society’s lack of commitment has permeated the Church as well and married folks don’t seem as inclined to try very hard through the struggles that always come. And before you get all up in my grill, I also realize that some situations are not repairable due to infidelity and abuse.
As a dad, it now bothers me to hear and sing some of those wonderful primary songs now that some of my children have wandered off into the wilderness.
I really liked this post. I have always loved the primary songs and still do. Growing up I listened to music to fall asleep until I was a young adult. Most of the time I listened to the primary songs (yes, even after I turned 12). I can still remember most of the primary songs and can sing them to my kids. They are permanently inscribed in my head!
I think for the most part the songs are good for kids. I do think we could eliminate some of them and put in a few more songs about Jesus. I don’t see any need to sing songs about father and mother that marginalize people like the author. I mean it’s great you came to that conclusion, but there’s no reason to sing a song about families over a song about Jesus IMHO. Even if ALL the songs were about Jesus it would be just fine with me.
Thanks, Jeff and jmb275.
As a child I went to sleep listening to cassette tapes of Bible Stories for Children narrated by Leif Erickson. They were great. Hope to find them in a digital format some day.
After my mom converted in 1977 she bought all the General Conference tapes back to 1973 and kept buying them until around 1982. I started listening to them a year or two before I was ordained a deacon. I would listen for hours while fiddling around in my bedroom, particularly on Sundays. I also kept the Church News fold out of General Authorities tacked up on the wall behind my bedroom door.
At the time I thought this was completely normal. I thought “wouldn’t anyone in the Church who had access to over a decade of General Conference on cassette want to listen to them for hours?” It got to the point were I could recognized every member of the Twelve by their voices. I’m glad I had the desire at the time but now that we can watch everything but priesthood session at home, I don’t expect my sons to have the same experience. Plus, there are so many alternatives to eat up their time.
My interest in conference talks started to wane around age 15 as my cassette player began to crank out more music. Local bands, the groups I mentioned in the post, and whatever older albums I could get on vinyl from thrift shops (Mostly “motion picture” soundtracks from the 50s and 60s and stuff like Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass).
The conference cassettes came back into my rotation about 18 months before I received a mission call. At the same time I started to slowly wean myself off music. Surprisingly, my Mission President had very a liberal music policy until people started listening to Metallica. From that point on it was hymns only. A few months later I heard Paul McCartney’s “Silly Love Songs” playing in a Kmart in Englewood, Colorado and I gained a new appreciation for in store PA systems.
Now I mostly reserve listing to conference talks on CD while driving. As a kid I didn’t appreciate the Tabernacle Choir and at first I didn’t like it when CD and cassettes of Conference started shipping with the music mixed in with the talks sometime in the 1990’s. I would fast forward past the songs. Now I’m glad to have them. I think the music has gotten more diverse than what was contained on the albums 30 years ago.
Yes, this is far more biographical information than most of you wanted to read. Oh well. Now you know a few more obscure details about my life. It’s all part of new transparency right?
I’ve become enthralled by the Classic talks I get from Itunes. they are mainly old BYU devotionals. My newest post is about one of those talks by Elder Gordon B. Hinckley in 1969