Nearer, My God, to Thee
Encyclopedia
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a 19th century Christian hymn
by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19, the story of Jacob's dream
. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."
It is most famous as the alleged last song the band on RMS Titanic played before the ship sank.
A sixth verse was later added to the hymn by Edward H. Bickersteth, Jr. as follows:
hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams
(1805–1848) at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton
, Essex
, England, in 1841. It was first set to music by Adams's sister, the composer Eliza Flower
, for William Johnson Fox
's collection Hymns and Anthems.
In the United Kingdom, the hymn is usually associated with the 1861 hymn tune
"Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes
, named for a village
near Wakefield
, England, where Dykes had found "peace and comfort". In the rest of the world, the hymn is usually sung to the 1856 tune "Bethany" by Lowell Mason
. Methodists
prefer the tune "Propior Deo" (Nearer to God), written by Arthur Sullivan
(of Gilbert and Sullivan
) in 1872. Sullivan wrote a second setting of the hymn to a tune referred to as "St. Edmund". Other 19th century settings include those by the Rev. N. S. Godfrey, W. H. Longhurst, Herbert Columbine, Frederic N. Löhr, Thomas Adams, and one composed jointly by William Sterndale Bennett
and Otto Goldschmidt
. In 1955, the English composer and musicologist Sir Jack Westrup
composed a setting in the form of an anthem for four soloists with organ accompaniment.
and in the Jean Negulesco's
1953 film Titanic
, whereas the "Horbury" version was played in Roy Ward Baker's
1958 movie about the sinking, A Night to Remember. The "Bethany" version was again used in James Cameron
's 1997 Titanic
.
Wallace Hartley
, the ship's band leader, who like all the musicians on board went down with the ship, was known to like the song and to wish to have it performed at his funeral. He was British and Methodist, and would have been familiar with both the "Horbury" and "Propior Deo" versions, but not with "Bethany". His father, a Methodist choirmaster, used the "Propior Deo" version at church for over thirty years. His family were certain he would have used the "Propior Deo" version, and it is this tune's opening notes that appear on Hartley's memorial. However, a record slip for a 1913 Edison cylinder recording of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", featuring the "Bethany" version, states that "When the great steamship 'Titanic' sank in mid-ocean in April 1912, it was being played by the band and sung by the doomed passengers, even as the boat took her final plunge."
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" was also sung by the doomed crew and passengers of the SS Valencia
as it sank off the Canadian coast in 1905, and this event may be the source of the Titanic legend.
composer, Carl Nielsen
. His version includes a musical rendition of the collision between boat and iceberg. The composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert
, moved by the Titanic tragedy, wrote six works based on the "Bethany" setting, including an organ fantasia. "Bethany" is also quoted in Charles Ives
's fourth symphony. The French organist Joseph Bonnet
wrote "In Memoriam – Titanic", the first of his Douze Pièces, Op. 10, based on the tune Horbury. It was published the year after the Titanic sank.
The hymn even made its way briefly onto the operatic stage. The singer Emma Abbott
, prompted by "her uncompromising and grotesque puritanism" rewrote La traviata
so that Violetta expired singing not Verdi
's Addio del passato, but Nearer my God to Thee.
William McKinley
in September 1901, quotes his dying words as being the first few lines of the hymn. At 3:30 pm, in the afternoon of September 14, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, numerous bands across the United States played the hymn, McKinley's favorite, in his memory. It was also played by the Marine Band on Pennsylvania Avenue
during the funeral procession through Washington and at the end of the funeral service itself, and at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey
, London. It was also played as the body of assassinated American President James Garfield
was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio
, and at the funeral of former United States President Gerald R. Ford.
The Confederate army band played this song as the survivors of the disastrous Pickett's Charge
(in the Battle of Gettysburg
) returned from their failed infantry assault. The Rough Riders
sang the hymn at the burial of their slain comrades after the Battle of Las Guasimas
. A film called Nearer My God to Thee was made in 1917 in the UK. "Nearer, My God, to Thee" is sung at the end of the 1936 movie San Francisco
. In the Max Ophuls
1952 film, Le Plaisir
, the French version of the hymn, 'Plus près de toi, mon Dieu,' is sung in a country church, which causes sobbing among a group of visiting Parisian courtesans." The title of the hymn is also the title of a painting by physician Jack Kevorkian
. William F. Buckley mentions in the introduction to his 1998 book, Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, that the title was inspired by "Nearer My God to Thee".
At the beginning of The Simpsons Movie
(2007), Green Day is seen playing a concert in Springfield on a barge. The audience pelts the band with stones. As the barge begins to sink, bassist Mike Dirnt
quotes the film Titanic
, uttering Hartley's line, "Gentlemen, it's been an honor playing with you tonight." The band members all take out violins and begin to play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" while sinking. This Titanic gag was also used in the film Osmosis Jones
, but the line is changed to "Gentlemen, playing with you has been the greatest pleasure of my life." In the South Park
episode, "Summer Sucks
", the boys play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" during the pandemonium after the giant snake firework is lit.
Ted Turner
, speaking shortly before the launch of CNN
, promised that, barring technical problems, "We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event.... and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God to Thee' before we sign off."
Hymn
A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a deity or deities, or to a prominent figure or personification...
by Sarah Flower Adams, based loosely on Genesis 28:11–19, the story of Jacob's dream
Jacob's Ladder (Bible)
Jacob's Ladder is a ladder to heaven, described in the Book of Genesis, that the biblical patriarch Jacob dreams about during his flight from his brother Esau.-Source:...
. Genesis 28:11–12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."
It is most famous as the alleged last song the band on RMS Titanic played before the ship sank.
Lyrics
The lyrics to the hymn are as follows:- Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
- E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me;
- Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,
-
- Chorus: Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
- Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
- Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
- Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to Thee,
-
- Chorus
- There let the way appear steps unto heav'n;
- All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv'n;
- Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,
-
- Chorus
- Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,
- Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
- So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,
-
- Chorus
- Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,
- Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,
- Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee,
A sixth verse was later added to the hymn by Edward H. Bickersteth, Jr. as follows:
- There in my Father’s home, safe and at rest,
- There in my Savior’s love, perfectly blest;
- Age after age to be, nearer my God to Thee.
-
- Chorus
Text and music
The verse was written by the English poet and UnitarianUnitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
hymn writer Sarah Flower Adams
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams was an English poet.-Biography:Sarah Fuller Flower was born at High Street, Old Harlow, Essex, younger daughter of Benjamin Flower, editor and the sister of composer Eliza Flower....
(1805–1848) at her home in Sunnybank, Loughton
Loughton
Loughton is a town and civil parish in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located between 11 and 13 miles north east of Charing Cross in London, south of the M25 and west of the M11 motorway and has boundaries with Chingford, Waltham Abbey, Theydon Bois, Chigwell and Buckhurst Hill...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England, in 1841. It was first set to music by Adams's sister, the composer Eliza Flower
Eliza Flower
Eliza Flower was a British musician and composer. In addition to her own work, Flower became known for her friendships including those with William Johnson Fox, Robert Browning, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor.-Biography:...
, for William Johnson Fox
William Johnson Fox
William Johnson Fox was an English religious and political orator.-Life:He was born near Southwold, Suffolk. He trained for the Independent ministry, at the dissenting academy known as Homerton College...
's collection Hymns and Anthems.
In the United Kingdom, the hymn is usually associated with the 1861 hymn tune
Hymn tune
A hymn tune is the melody of a musical composition to which a hymn text is sung. Musically speaking, a hymn is generally understood to have four-part harmony, a fast harmonic rhythm , and no refrain or chorus....
"Horbury" by John Bacchus Dykes
John Bacchus Dykes
John Bacchus Dykes was an English clergyman and hymnist.-Biography:...
, named for a village
Horbury
-Demography:In 2008 Horbury had a largely white population compared with Yorkshire and the Humber.-Population change:The population of Horbury in 2001 was 10,002-Transport:...
near Wakefield
Wakefield
Wakefield is the main settlement and administrative centre of the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district of West Yorkshire, England. Located by the River Calder on the eastern edge of the Pennines, the urban area is and had a population of 76,886 in 2001....
, England, where Dykes had found "peace and comfort". In the rest of the world, the hymn is usually sung to the 1856 tune "Bethany" by Lowell Mason
Lowell Mason
Lowell Mason was a leading figure in American church music, the composer of over 1600 hymn tunes, many of which are often sung today. His most well-known tunes include Mary Had A Little Lamb and the arrangement of Joy to the World...
. Methodists
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
prefer the tune "Propior Deo" (Nearer to God), written by Arthur Sullivan
Arthur Sullivan
Sir Arthur Seymour Sullivan MVO was an English composer of Irish and Italian ancestry. He is best known for his series of 14 operatic collaborations with the dramatist W. S. Gilbert, including such enduring works as H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado...
(of Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
) in 1872. Sullivan wrote a second setting of the hymn to a tune referred to as "St. Edmund". Other 19th century settings include those by the Rev. N. S. Godfrey, W. H. Longhurst, Herbert Columbine, Frederic N. Löhr, Thomas Adams, and one composed jointly by William Sterndale Bennett
William Sterndale Bennett
Sir William Sterndale Bennett was an English composer. He ranks as the most distinguished English composer of the Romantic school-Biography:...
and Otto Goldschmidt
Otto Goldschmidt
Otto Moritz David Goldschmidt was a German composer, conductor and pianist, known for his piano concertos and other piano pieces...
. In 1955, the English composer and musicologist Sir Jack Westrup
Jack Westrup
Sir Jack Westrup was an English musicologist, writer, teacher and occasional composer.-Biography:Jack Allan Westrup was the second of the three sons of George Westrup, insurance clerk, of Dulwich, and his wife, Harriet Sophia née Allan. He was educated at Dulwich College, London 1917-22, and at...
composed a setting in the form of an anthem for four soloists with organ accompaniment.
RMS Titanic and SS Valencia
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is associated with the RMS Titanic, as one passenger reported that the ship's band played the hymn as the Titanic sank. The "Bethany" version was used in the 1943 film TitanicTitanic (1943 film)
Titanic was a 1943 Nazi propaganda film made during World War II in Berlin by Tobis Productions for UFA, which was later banned from Nazi Germany by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. The film used the sinking of the RMS Titanic as a setting for an attempt to discredit British and American...
and in the Jean Negulesco's
Jean Negulesco
Jean Negulesco was a Romanian-born American film director and screenwriter....
1953 film Titanic
Titanic (1953 film)
Titanic is a 1953 American drama film directed by Jean Negulesco. Its plot centers on an estranged couple sailing on the maiden voyage of the , which took place in April 1912.-Plot:...
, whereas the "Horbury" version was played in Roy Ward Baker's
Roy Ward Baker
Roy Ward Baker , born Roy Horace Baker, was an English film director, credited as Roy Baker for much of his career. His best known film is A Night to Remember which won a Golden Globe for Best English-Language Foreign Film in 1959...
1958 movie about the sinking, A Night to Remember. The "Bethany" version was again used in James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...
's 1997 Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
.
Wallace Hartley
Wallace Hartley
Wallace Henry Hartley was an English violinist and bandleader on the on its maiden voyage. He became famous for leading the eight member band as the ship sank on 15 April 1912. He died in the sinking.-Life and career:...
, the ship's band leader, who like all the musicians on board went down with the ship, was known to like the song and to wish to have it performed at his funeral. He was British and Methodist, and would have been familiar with both the "Horbury" and "Propior Deo" versions, but not with "Bethany". His father, a Methodist choirmaster, used the "Propior Deo" version at church for over thirty years. His family were certain he would have used the "Propior Deo" version, and it is this tune's opening notes that appear on Hartley's memorial. However, a record slip for a 1913 Edison cylinder recording of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", featuring the "Bethany" version, states that "When the great steamship 'Titanic' sank in mid-ocean in April 1912, it was being played by the band and sung by the doomed passengers, even as the boat took her final plunge."
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" was also sung by the doomed crew and passengers of the SS Valencia
SS Valencia
The SS Valencia was an iron-hulled passenger steamer wrecked off the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia in 1906. Built in 1882 by William Cramp and Sons, she was a 1,598 ton vessel, 252 feet in length...
as it sank off the Canadian coast in 1905, and this event may be the source of the Titanic legend.
Quotations in musical compositions
A dramatic paraphrase of the hymn tune was written for wind band by the DanishDenmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
composer, Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
. His version includes a musical rendition of the collision between boat and iceberg. The composer Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Sigfrid Karg-Elert was a German composer of considerable fame in the early twentieth century, best known for his compositions for organ and harmonium.-Biography:...
, moved by the Titanic tragedy, wrote six works based on the "Bethany" setting, including an organ fantasia. "Bethany" is also quoted in Charles Ives
Charles Ives
Charles Edward Ives was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though Ives' music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his works went unperformed for many years. Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American Original"...
's fourth symphony. The French organist Joseph Bonnet
Joseph Bonnet
Joseph Bonnet was a French composer and organist.One of the major French pipe organ players, Joseph Bonnet was born in Bordeaux. He first studied with his father, an organist at St. Eulalie. At the age of 14, he became official organist, first at St. Nicholas and almost immediately at St. Michael...
wrote "In Memoriam – Titanic", the first of his Douze Pièces, Op. 10, based on the tune Horbury. It was published the year after the Titanic sank.
The hymn even made its way briefly onto the operatic stage. The singer Emma Abbott
Emma Abbott
Emma Abbott was an American operatic soprano and impresario known for her pure, clear voice of great flexibility and volume.-Early life:...
, prompted by "her uncompromising and grotesque puritanism" rewrote La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
so that Violetta expired singing not Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Addio del passato, but Nearer my God to Thee.
Other uses
Another tale, surrounding the death of PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
William McKinley
William McKinley
William McKinley, Jr. was the 25th President of the United States . He is best known for winning fiercely fought elections, while supporting the gold standard and high tariffs; he succeeded in forging a Republican coalition that for the most part dominated national politics until the 1930s...
in September 1901, quotes his dying words as being the first few lines of the hymn. At 3:30 pm, in the afternoon of September 14, 1901, after five minutes of silence across the nation, numerous bands across the United States played the hymn, McKinley's favorite, in his memory. It was also played by the Marine Band on Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue is a street in Washington, D.C. that joins the White House and the United States Capitol. Called "America's Main Street", it is the location of official parades and processions, as well as protest marches...
during the funeral procession through Washington and at the end of the funeral service itself, and at a memorial service for him in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, London. It was also played as the body of assassinated American President James Garfield
James Garfield
James Abram Garfield served as the 20th President of the United States, after completing nine consecutive terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. Garfield's accomplishments as President included a controversial resurgence of Presidential authority above Senatorial courtesy in executive...
was interred at Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
, and at the funeral of former United States President Gerald R. Ford.
The Confederate army band played this song as the survivors of the disastrous Pickett's Charge
Pickett's Charge
Pickett's Charge was an infantry assault ordered by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee against Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on July 3, 1863, the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Its futility was predicted by the charge's commander,...
(in the Battle of Gettysburg
Battle of Gettysburg
The Battle of Gettysburg , was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The battle with the largest number of casualties in the American Civil War, it is often described as the war's turning point. Union Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac...
) returned from their failed infantry assault. The Rough Riders
Rough Riders
The Rough Riders is the name bestowed on the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, one of three such regiments raised in 1898 for the Spanish-American War and the only one of the three to see action. The United States Army was weakened and left with little manpower after the American Civil War...
sang the hymn at the burial of their slain comrades after the Battle of Las Guasimas
Battle of Las Guasimas
The Battle of Las Guasimas of June 24, 1898, part of the Spanish-American War, unfolded from Major General "Fighting Joe" Wheeler's attempt to storm a Spanish position in the jungles surrounding Santiago. Commanding a division that included the 1st U.S...
. A film called Nearer My God to Thee was made in 1917 in the UK. "Nearer, My God, to Thee" is sung at the end of the 1936 movie San Francisco
San Francisco (film)
San Francisco is a 1936 musical-drama directed by Woody Van Dyke, based on the April 18, 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The film, which was the top grossing movie of that year, stars Clark Gable, Jeanette MacDonald, and Spencer Tracy. The then very popular singing of MacDonald helped make this film...
. In the Max Ophuls
Max Ophüls
Maximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...
1952 film, Le Plaisir
Le Plaisir
Le Plaisir , also known as House of Pleasure, is a French comedy-drama anthology film directed by Max Ophüls adapting three stories by Guy de Maupassant...
, the French version of the hymn, 'Plus près de toi, mon Dieu,' is sung in a country church, which causes sobbing among a group of visiting Parisian courtesans." The title of the hymn is also the title of a painting by physician Jack Kevorkian
Jack Kevorkian
Jacob "Jack" Kevorkian , commonly known as "Dr. Death", was an American pathologist, euthanasia activist, painter, composer and instrumentalist. He is best known for publicly championing a terminal patient's right to die via physician-assisted suicide; he said he assisted at least 130 patients to...
. William F. Buckley mentions in the introduction to his 1998 book, Nearer, My God: An Autobiography of Faith, that the title was inspired by "Nearer My God to Thee".
At the beginning of The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie
The Simpsons Movie is a 2007 American animated comedy film based on the animated television series The Simpsons. The film was directed by David Silverman, and stars the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Tress...
(2007), Green Day is seen playing a concert in Springfield on a barge. The audience pelts the band with stones. As the barge begins to sink, bassist Mike Dirnt
Mike Dirnt
Michael Ryan Pritchard is an American musician, best known as the bassist, backing vocalist and co-founder of the American Rock band Green Day. While at school, he would play "air-bass." While pretending to pluck the strings, he made the noise, "dirnt, dirnt, dirnt"...
quotes the film Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
, uttering Hartley's line, "Gentlemen, it's been an honor playing with you tonight." The band members all take out violins and begin to play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" while sinking. This Titanic gag was also used in the film Osmosis Jones
Osmosis Jones
Osmosis Jones is a 2001 live-action/animated comedy film directed by Tom Sito and Piet Kroon for the animated segments and the Farrelly brothers for the live-action segments...
, but the line is changed to "Gentlemen, playing with you has been the greatest pleasure of my life." In the South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
episode, "Summer Sucks
Summer Sucks
"Summer Sucks" is the eight episode of the second season of the animated television series South Park, and the 21st episode of the series overall...
", the boys play "Nearer, My God, to Thee" during the pandemonium after the giant snake firework is lit.
Ted Turner
Ted Turner
Robert Edward "Ted" Turner III is an American media mogul and philanthropist. As a businessman, he is known as founder of the cable news network CNN, the first dedicated 24-hour cable news channel. In addition, he founded WTBS, which pioneered the superstation concept in cable television...
, speaking shortly before the launch of CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, promised that, barring technical problems, "We won't be signing off until the world ends. We'll be on, and we will cover the end of the world, live, and that will be our last event.... and when the end of the world comes, we'll play 'Nearer My God to Thee' before we sign off."
External links
- Genesis 28:11-12 (American Standard Version)
- Midi file, translation of Genesis 28:11–12 and discussion of the hymn
- Nearer, My God, to Thee - At Free MP3 Hymns
- YouTube - Nearer My God To Thee - Acapella Hymn and Lyrics
- Lyrics with midi
- Midi files and discussion of uses of the hymn
- Sheet music to Propior Deo
- Information about the 1917 film at the IMDB database
- Sheet music for "Nearer, My God, to Thee" from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books...
(White arrangement) - Sheet Music for "Nearer, My God, to Thee", McKinley Music Co., 1909 (Sawyer/Turner arrangement)