No. 225 Hallelujah, Osh 146
Hexatonic, mode 1 b (I II — IV V VI 7)
And let this feeble body fail,
And let it faint or die;
My soul shall quit this mournful vale
And soar to worlds on high.
And I’ll sing hallelujah,
And you’ll sing hallelujah,
And we’ll all sing hallelujah,
When we arrive at home.
This text by Charles Wesley, supplemented by the infectious chorus and sung to this swingful tune, was widely popular in the first part of the nineteenth century. It is given more fully under ‘Pleasant Hill’. The song is found, SOH 107 and HH 102.
The tune had qualities which made it widely popular. There is of course no knowing whether the many variant forms which I have found derive from the above tune; but I have given them collectively the name the ‘Hallelujah’ tune family. Other members of the family in this collection are ‘Stephens’, ‘Pilgrim’s Triumph’, ‘Faithful Soldier’, ‘Tender Care’, ‘Sawyer’s Exit’, ‘O I’m So Happy’, and ‘Converted Thief (a)’. Related melodies with secular texts are ‘The Reilly Song’, Thomas, p. 166; ‘Chickens They are Crowing’, Sharp, ii., 378; ‘Lord Thomas and Fair Eleanor’, Sharp, i., 125; ‘Virginian Lover’, Sharp, ii., 149f.; ‘Banks of Sweet Dundee’, Sharp, i., 399; ‘The Pinery Boy’, Shoemaker, p. 262; ‘Kilrush Air’ Petrie, Nos. 167 and 283; and ‘Tweed Side’, SMM, p. 9.