Spanish-speaking Friends sing at World Plenary 2024. Photo: Courtesy of FWCC.
On song: Tim Gee says singing is, and always has been, part of the full Quaker experience
‘After my daughter was born, I couldn’t keep from singing.’
After my daughter was born, I couldn’t keep from singing. Sure, there weren’t many other ways to entertain her, as our hands were literally full, and it seemed to be one of the better ways to get her to sleep. But that wasn’t really why. In truth I felt a deep need inside, to express the joy I felt. That came out as singing.
Mostly I sang love songs because I was falling in love. But I also sang hymns. When she was on my front in the baby carrier, ear next to my chest, the long deep notes of hymns seemed to calm her, especially if accompanied by a walk.
And so I walked the streets of Peckham, singing ‘Calon Lân’, ‘Sing John Ball’, ‘How Can I Keep from Singing’… anything I even half knew, second verses quickly learned when she was asleep, ready for longer versions next time they were needed.
All this came as a surprise. I’m not really much of a singer. It was nice to have an appreciative audience, but I’m not one to sing for performance. I’d never even liked hymns (when they are big and bombastic I still don’t). But that’s not the only way to praise God through song.
Early Quakers sang
It also came as a surprise to me as a Quaker, because I thought that traditionally ‘Quakers don’t sing’ – at least, not usually during Meeting for Worship. I used to think this had always been the case. That was until I read the sources more carefully.
Most Friends know that George Fox said he couldn’t sing, and was most unimpressed when a priest told him to cheer up by smoking tobacco and singing psalms. Tradition has also preserved the story of his companion, Solomon Eccles, who publicly burned his musical instruments on Tower Hill.
But Eccles also clarified that Friends approve of ‘Musick that pleaseth God’. From the writings of later generations of Friends, this would seem to refer to song emerging from a personal experience of Spirit, rather than simply ‘mouthing the words of another’.
Fox didn’t like empty words of any sort, spoken or sung. In a passage from his Journal where he seems to condemn singing, he quotes Isaiah 1 in which God calls out the hypocrisy of people engaging in all kinds of worship practices while failing to stand up for the oppressed.
And Fox sang. On being beaten in prison, he found he ‘was moved in the Lord’s power to sing’, which made the warders go away. Under arrest in Lancaster, he sang out again. In the course of being banished under guard from a town in Scotland, his comrade James Lancaster was also moved to sing.
We might also ask what Fox did when he ‘sounded the Day of the Lord’ atop Pendle Hill in 1652. He was probably channelling Joel 2, which speaks of a trumpet being blown on a holy mountain. Since Fox didn’t play the trumpet, it’s fair to think that, whatever he did, he did with his voice.
Fox advised Friends to ‘sing in the Spirit’. In Ireland, Fox recorded that Friends ‘broke out into singing, even with audible voices, making melody in their hearts’. Back in England we can read of Friends engaging in ‘serious sighing’ and ‘sensible groaning’ as well as ‘reverent singing’ during worship (I’m glad it’s mostly the singing that has endured).
Early Christians sang
William Penn said that Friends sought to be ‘Primitive Christianity revived’, and early Quaker attitudes reflected those of their forebears. In the earliest detailed description of a church service, music isn’t mentioned. There is no New Testament reference to musical instruments in worship either. Where they are mentioned, it is usually in the course of metaphor – but they aren’t prohibited.
Singing, however, is mentioned multiple times. On learning she is pregnant, Mary sings. Jesus and his followers sing following the last supper. Paul and Silas sing in jail. Both Paul and James encourage their hearers to sing. Some have suggested that Paul’s letters include song fragments.
‘I imagine my Welsh chapel-going ancestors smiling at this Quaker descendant.’
In the Hebrew scriptures there is even more singing, including at least one songbook: the Psalms (Song of Songs could arguably be another), plus other shorter sets of lyrics. We also find David playing the harp described as ‘prophesying’, which suggests a calming form of musical prayer without words.
Most Quakers sing
Most Friends around the world today sing, especially in Africa, where most of the world’s Friends are. The first Friends Church in Africa I visited was the largest congregation in Burundi, where nine choirs combine on a Sunday morning.
Friends in unprogrammed Meetings sing too. The silent Meeting in Nairobi closes with a song. In Tokyo there is a monthly singing session after Meeting. Joyce Ajlouny, the general secretary of American Friends Service Committee, once told me that at home in Ramallah, hymns would be called mid-worship, invariably including ‘A Song of Peace’.
Peter Blood-Patterson recalls regularly singing at Meeting in Michigan in the 1950s, as well as at residentials and gatherings. This helped weave together the community, and was part of what led to the group-singing songbook Rise Up Singing, compiled with his wife, Annie Blood-Patterson.
Friends General Conference has had hymnals since 1919. Friends United Meeting has had them since 1902. In Britain we have Sing in the Spirit, building on previous compilations. In Western Kenya many Friends bind together the Swahili hymnbook Injili with the Luhya collection Tsinyimbo Tsya Nyasaye ready to pull from their pockets.
How can we keep from singing?
Accordingly, at Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) events, we sing. World Plenary Meetings have had songbooks for at least fifty years. The last one was prepared with Friends from eight different countries. Last year at Britain Yearly Meeting we shared copies as part of the George Fox 400 celebrations, and hundreds of us sung from it together.
I don’t know whether singing is scheduled at Yearly Meeting this year (although who knows how the Spirit may move). FWCC will be there though, and we still have some songbooks available. On 3 May we will also be previewing the documentary made about the recent World Plenary Meeting, which will convey something of the Spirit of international Quaker events.
I imagine my Welsh dissenter chapel-going ancestors smiling at this Quaker descendant unable to keep from singing. Perhaps that’s part of it. But song has long been a part of Quaker life. I’m glad to be part of sustaining it.
Tim is general secretary to FWCC. Copies of the songbook are available for a donation by emailing world@fwcc.world.
Comments
When I and other Eva Koch scholars at Woodbrooke in 2019 looked at the handwritten Book of Discipline held there, we found an advice that singing in Meeting for Worship was permissible if prompted by the Spirit - and that it should be seen in the same light as sighing or groaning ministry!
By kazbel on 3rd April 2025 - 13:35
In the 1930s Ada Salter at Peckham Meeting used to play the piano after the Silence, to accompany a Friend who was an accomplished singer, and when she herself then sang American Gospel it “would bring the house down”.
Graham Taylor
By grahamtaylor on 3rd April 2025 - 17:56
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