Favorite lds songs?

[Newme]

Some of the best memories that I share with a friend (who's also now NOM'ish) involve songs we listened to during college days.
Even now, they still give me a good feeling, though I no longer believe in every word of the lyrics.

What are some songs for you that you still like in some way, shape or form?


Some of my favorite lds songs - or songs by lds artists:

Prayer of the Children, by Kirt Bestor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=si4-gOqqlB8

Hold on the light will come, Michael Mclean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pXO7TugBjI

Together Forever https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mN5kTavatk (mostly the first song)

Saturday Warriors Paper Dream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoYeFeAzgCo

[telemoonka]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIAEi-wNXtY

The Handcart Song sung by L M Hilton. It represents the faith of my pioneer ancestors.

I love the hymns. They speak to me in such a special way. They help me feel the Spirit. I don't really like songs about Joseph Smith too much, like "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and "Praise to the Man" but there are dozens of other hymns that I love. Oh, and I have to give Erin Major a mention. Look for her album on iTunes. I don't know her in real life or anything, but I was searching for the full version of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" on day and I found hers. I loved it right away, and I bought her album. On Sundays in my house, we only listen to church music or instrumental music or classical music or Bob Dylan's albums from his Christian phase. ( I don't like calling it a Christian phase, but, you know what I mean.) So... there have been many Sundays in which I've played Erin Major's album. It's fantastic. To me, her music is the real folk music that's happening now. The hipsters these days who are singing about picking cotton really know nothing about picking cotton.

[moksha]

Not necessarily an LDS song, this one speaks more to the Universal Believer in all faith traditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xq831b2tPg

[document]

When I was a primary pianist and then chorister as an adult I fell in love with "I'll Walk With You". I still think that it is one of the most beautiful and necessary children's songs ever written. It was during my transition from Mormonism that I learned the history behind it and read the book, "Goodbye, I love you". It deepened the little song so much and made it that much more special.

I went to my mother's ward on Christmas day (five church services in 24 hours, I was pooped) and I flipped through the hymnal.

I love the hymn "Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love", the version written by Ebenezer Beesley (Hymn 177)
I also love "Come, Come, Ye Saints", which is also found (and modified) for the UCC and 7th Day Adventist hymnals

[Newme]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIAEi-wNXtY

The Handcart Song sung by L M Hilton. It represents the faith of my pioneer ancestors.

I love the hymns. They speak to me in such a special way. They help me feel the Spirit. I don't really like songs about Joseph Smith too much, like "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" and "Praise to the Man" but there are dozens of other hymns that I love. Oh, and I have to give Erin Major a mention. Look for her album on iTunes. I don't know her in real life or anything, but I was searching for the full version of "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" on day and I found hers. I loved it right away, and I bought her album. On Sundays in my house, we only listen to church music or instrumental music or classical music or Bob Dylan's albums from his Christian phase. ( I don't like calling it a Christian phase, but, you know what I mean.) So... there have been many Sundays in which I've played Erin Major's album. It's fantastic. To me, her music is the real folk music that's happening now. The hipsters these days who are singing about picking cotton really know nothing about picking cotton.

Thanks for that.
Never heard all of the verses - just the primary song.
The way he sings it reminds me of some Irish or Scottish influence.

[Newme]

Not necessarily an LDS song, this one speaks more to the Universal Believer in all faith traditions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Xq831b2tPg

I like it! Thanks, Moksha.
It reminds me that "in each of us is a bit of all of us."
We all have certain potentials and tendencies, no matter what country, ethnicity or religion or lack of.

I think as people begin to see how there is one race - the human race - that we're a huge family - then there will be less insistence on one group begin better or more right than another.

[Newme]

When I was a primary pianist and then chorister as an adult I fell in love with "I'll Walk With You". I still think that it is one of the most beautiful and necessary children's songs ever written. It was during my transition from Mormonism that I learned the history behind it and read the book, "Goodbye, I love you". It deepened the little song so much and made it that much more special.

I love that one too!
If you don't mind, what do you remember of the history behind that song?

I went to my mother's ward on Christmas day (five church services in 24 hours, I was pooped) and I flipped through the hymnal.

I love the hymn "Tis Sweet to Sing the Matchless Love", the version written by Ebenezer Beesley (Hymn 177)
I also love "Come, Come, Ye Saints", which is also found (and modified) for the UCC and 7th Day Adventist hymnals

Good ones, thanks.
Sometimes over the years, I'll go into the chapel when nobody's there and play a verse of some of my favorites:
Dearest Children God is Near You
Lead Kindly Light
I Need Thee Every Hour
Nearer my God to Thee
Where Can I Turn for Peace
Abide with me; 'Tis Eventide
O My Father - (3rd verse I especially like because it mentions Heavenly Mother)

[document]

Carol Lynn Pearson's husband was gay and came out of the closet well into their marriage. They divorced but remained close friends and still to a degree loved each other. She moved to San Francisco with him so that their family could be closer. He contracted AIDS (as did many gay men in the late 70s and early 80s) and died a few years later. He moved back into her home to be with their children and died there with his family.

She later said in an interview (I don't have the source, but I distinctly remember it as I watched it in the height of my disaffection) that her song, "I'll Walk With You" was inspired by her journey with her husband and that we all should reach out to our gay brothers and sisters.

"If you don't walk like most people do, some people walk away from you, but I won't, I won't.....I'll walk with you, I'll talk with you, that's how I'll show my love for you".

IIRC, she published it in 1987, her husband died in 1984 (I'm working off of memory here, but those dates sound about right).

[Korihor]

Primary songs are basically all the children songs I know. But I have issue's singing "I love to see the tempe" to my kids anymore.

At bedtime, we usually sing a little song to each child as we tuck them into bed. They usually ask us to.

I was struggling to remember secular nursery ryhmes and songs. So I just sing (terribly) the tune of a given primary song but change all the lyrics and make it a special song about them.

[Silver Girl]

I know very few of the primary songs - I didn't grow up LDS and was never assigned to that group. But I do like Come, Come Ye Saints, and I like the energy and soaring music in High on the Mountaintop and The Spirit of God, even if some of the lyrics don't resonate with me now. I also like Oh My Father, which almost has a lullaby feel to it.

[Emower]

Primary songs are basically all the children songs I know. But I have issue's singing "I love to see the tempe" to my kids anymore.

I used to sing bedtime songs to my kids and they were all church songs because that was all I knew. There are a few I refuse to sing anymore. I love to see the temple is one that they loved but I will not sing it any more.

I feel a little sad because I really enjoyed singing hymns, and I still love the tunes, but the words anymore just make me cringe.

[Emower]

Now I just sing old cowboy ballads as bedtime songs. They are all about people dying, getting shot in pool room fights, runned over by stampedes and so on. The kids love it.

[Korihor]

Now I just sing old cowboy ballads as bedtime songs. They are all about people dying, getting shot in pool room fights, runned over by stampedes and so on. The kids love it.

Reference/links please

[Newme]

Thanks for the comments.

Document,
Interesting background of that song.
People are still dying of the homosexual lifestyle - I lost 2 friends relatively recently and another's really sick.
IMO, it's often misrepresented, to be happy rainbows when it isn't. Of those I've met, they have all had incredibly harsh childhoods of abuse. Reminds me of the importance of being kind because you never know what emotional battle someone's fighting.

[Emower]

Now I just sing old cowboy ballads as bedtime songs. They are all about people dying, getting shot in pool room fights, runned over by stampedes and so on. The kids love it.

Reference/links please

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-cowboysongs.html
There are differing tunes to the songs, like most folk music lyrics and tunes can vary quite a bit. Get on YouTube to get an idea of the tunes. Micheal Martin Murphy is one of my favorite ballad singers, but a lot of big name artists have done renditions of these songs like Johnny cash, Willie, Waylon, and Hank (Williams and snow).

[HighMaintenance]

I always liked "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief".

Also, when one of my sisters was in Seminary, it was the year of the church's Sesquicentennial and there was an album released call "The Quest" along with that years manual or something like that to do with church history. I can still remember a few of the songs off that album. Way better than Saturday's Warrior.

[Newme]

Thanks again for the comments.

Some songs have meaning to me because they're tied to good memories:
At an elderly home, I paused from other entertainment to sign to the song, "What is Real" and when I finished I saw a woman with tears, which touched my heart.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxsXbPu ... u_GfQ#t=93

I also signed to this song with my dad as he played guitar:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x5HiOp7EMo

Janice Kap Perry has several good ones:
Integrity (this reminds me when I had ran away but had some of my piano music with me including a book by her, and this older partying guy asked me, "When I see this book you have, I can't help but wonder why you're living like this?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0HIryjn6Kc

"The Test" reminds me of so many people who have suffered a lot - or have died, and those who painfully miss them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieuQTKuUbBU

My sister was singing & I was playing, "My nature is divine" and our sister-in-law was tearfully moved and said how much she liked that song. A few years later, she had a spiritual experience and then she died, so it's even more meaningful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4FT39Dv17w
=
Somewhere, I have a cd of good lds songs that I like - on it is one that really resonated with me in my faith crisis, ironically.
It's similar to this one that I also like:
Remember the Promise: (remember the loyalty to truth, even if it's inconvenient to a religion or popular opinion)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jxwp-R ... Rr4R0#t=32

[moksha]

This is certainly pretty enough to be a favorite Church song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNCv5ZUCKI

[Give It Time]

From Saturday's Warrior, Brace Me Up

From the hymnal

I Stand All Amazed
God Of Our Father's
I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day (I'm really glad we have this in the hymnal, I haven't seen it too many other places)

From Primary:

I agree with Document about I'll Walk With You. I already knew the story of Carol Lynn Pearson and her husband. I didn't know about the song when our chorister taught it to us. She was NOM-ish and, one day, she said she loved this song, thought it was important and that it was inspired by her husband. Ah! Light dawns. It helped me appreciate the chorister, because she was always dissing my favorite songs and being too old fashioned.

Beautiful Savior
Called To Serve
The Lord Needs Valiant Servants
Sing Your Way Home
I Often Go Walking

[Newme]

This is certainly pretty enough to be a favorite Church song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKNCv5ZUCKI

Beautiful.
"Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?"

As the sayings go, we see what we're prepared to see and not as things are but as we are - nothing more nothing less.