God Be In My Head

Introduction

Our choir first did God Be In My Head at the ordination for Colleen, and it was on my mind to spend some time looking up the history of this piece. It’s a very rich one, and we’ll spend some time on it today, looking at the lyrics, listening to a couple of different presentations of the piece, and looking at a devotional written from this.

History

The words are a prayer, and a fairly old one. The first known printing is from the Sarum Primer from the early 16th century.

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at mine end, and at my departing.

Sarum is the latin name for the British town of Salisbury, which is in sourthwestern England, about 50 km from London and sort of near Southampton. For reasons I haven’t dug into, the common rite practices from Salisbury were very influential in what has become the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

This particular prayer was prabably around for hundreds of years before being written in the Sarum Primer, and I’ve seen different pages ascribing it to 12th century England and 13th century France. Suffice it to say, it’s relatively old, though not as old as some things like the Gloria Patri.

A Devotional

In doing some reading on this piece, I found a devotional that I want to share from bryontayler.com. Rather than reproduce the devotional here, I’m simply linking to it.

Set to Music

Given the age of this prayer, it’s not surprising that it was originaly done as chant or plainsong, and many of the presentations have that feel to it. On particularly interesting version was written by Fraser Wilson (no relation), and there’s a YouTube presentation of that by the Rivelin Singers of Chester, England (which Wilson apparently directs).

From a hymnal perspective, some call this an irregular meter, others list it as 12.10.10.10.11. The latter is somewhat useful, in that among modern hymnals, there are three tunes with that meter – God Be In My Head, Field, and Lytlington. The tune God Be In My Head is by Sir Henry Walford Davies (1869–1941). If you do a search in iTunes, most of the presentations of this prayer are basically the Davies version, with the Rutter version next. As one example, let’s listen to The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge presentation of the Davies version.

Tying a bit back to last week, and the version I found while searching through my music library. There are at least four or five presentations of this on YouTube, and the one I liked best is done a group called the “Cappuccinis” in Frankfurt, Germany. I’ve got the recording of this by the Cambridge Singers with Rutter conducting, and that’s what we’ll listen to this morning.

A final version of this song is quite different. I found this on bandcamp.com, and it’s by Michael Van Patter, and it’s on the Songs for Liturgy compendium by Cardiphonia.

Thoughts

There are lots of different ways to sing and think about this prayer. But it’s the thinking about that’s most important. I’ve not really found one that’s quite singable and memorable for me, but I may well keep looking. What this prayer is asking for is something that’s important to me, and someplace where I fall short. So, it’s a good one to keep in mind, all of our days.