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Quote:
Come, come, ye saints, no toil nor labor fear;
But with joy wend your way.
Though hard to you this journey may appear,
Grace shall be as your day.
Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive;
Do this, and joy your hearts will swell –
All is well! All is well!
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard?
‘Tis not so; all is right.
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight?
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake;
And soon we’ll have this tale to tell-
All is well! All is well!
We’ll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away, in the West,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the saints, will be blessed.
We’ll make the air, with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we’ll tell –
All is well! All is well!
And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the Saints their rest obtain,
Oh, how we’ll make this chorus swell-
All is well! All is well!
Pioneer Day is coming up and I’ve been thinking about this hymn. We’re all going to sing it, but we won’t all be thinking the same things. Some will be holding the line and others will be pushing the boundaries. And I just have to trust that all
iswell! Back when I was listening to a lot of Mormon Stories podcasts, the lead-in music would leave me almost in tears every time. It would soften
andsteel me for what I was about to hear. No toil nor labor fear. The church can survive and maybe thrive if we all just push through. (And it’s a genuine miracle that a lyric written to celebrate the safe arrival of William Clayton’s polygamous wife’s baby can inspire me.) I like Come, Come, Ye Saints, and you’re right, I’m sure we’ll sing it this Sunday even though I don’t think anybody currently in our ward has pioneer ancestry. FWIW, I don’t care for many LDS-centric hymns and particularly those that focus on pioneers and western culture. Seriously, how do people sing “Firm as the mountains around us” or “and we hear the desert singing” with a straight face in Kansas or North Carolina or upstate NY? It’s not that I don’t appreciate the pioneers, I do – if not for their sacrifices (which I’m not sure I would have done) the church as we know it might not be here today. I realize that almost all of the top leadership does have pioneer ancestry and they’re not going to let go of celebrating Pioneer Day – but eventually as a global church we’re going to have to and let it be a cultural thing celebrated only in Utah and not churchwide. As a side note, I served my mission in New Zealand where we had the same hymnbooks we have here. We never sang those Utah/Pioneer-centric songs, even “Come, Come Ye Saints.”
I like the “Come, Come, Ye Saints” hymn too, even if it was written to celebrate the birth of William Clayton’s polygamous child. I also love Carol Lynn Pearson’s poem, “Pioneers.” Quote:My people were Mormon pioneers.
Is the blood still good?
They stood in awe as truth
Flew by like a dove
And dropped a feather in the West.
Where truth flies you follow
If you are a pioneer.
I have searched the skies
And now and then
Another feather has fallen.
I have packed the handcart again
Packed it with the precious things
And thrown away the rest.
I will sing by the fires at night
Out there on uncharted ground
Where I am my own captain of tens
Where I blow the bugle
Bring myself to morning prayer
Map out the miles
And never know when or where
Or if at all I will finally say,
“This is the place,”
I face the plains
On a good day for walking.
The sun rises
And the mist clears.
I will be all right:
My people were Mormon Pioneers.
DarkJedi wrote:FWIW, I don’t care for many LDS-centric hymns and particularly those that focus on pioneers and western culture. Seriously, how do people sing “Firm as the mountains around us” or “and we hear the desert singing” with a straight face in Kansas or North Carolina or upstate NY? “
I live in Indiana, and I usually change the word ‘mountains’ to ‘cornfields’ – it even fits the meter perfectly.
And I
loatheCome Come Ye Saints. Sung at the dirge-like tempo so beloved in the Momon church, it takes about ten minutes to get through the whole thing. The dirge tempo is a problem with a lot of hymns, but it is really the problem of the conductor and organist, not the hymn itself. Almost none of the written tempos for hymns are dirge-like, it’s just that some organists play really slowly. I like this hymn a lot too. It’s one of the few “Utah” or “pioneer” songs that actually means something to me.
I agree about the tempos and will cross my fingers for us all this Sunday. 
According to Wikipedia there are alternative lyrics to the third verse’s “far away in the west.” I like them, but I don’t feel strongly about it.
Quote:We’ll find the place which God for us prepared,In His house full of light,
Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid;
There the saints will shine bright.
We’ll make the air with music ring,
Shout praises to our God and King;
Above the rest these words we’ll tell,
All is well! All is well!
I often find myself humming it when I am really nervous. It always catches me off guard. It’s not conscious, but in a way it works. And for motivating me I like it better than “Put Your Shoulder To The Wheel.” I always thought that putting your shoulder to the wheel was a good way to get run over by the wagon. 
As a music-y person (and confirmed alto), I’ve always disliked “come, Come Ye Saints” because the music is bo-ring. My husband always wants to play it on the harmonica–“for authenticity”–but I won’t let him bring one to church.
And speaking of alternative verses:
Come, come, ye saints
No toilet paper here
But with leaves
Wipe yer rear.
Pretty sure that’s the Scout version. I’m middle-aged and I’ve known it since I was a kid, so technically it’s historic.
I heard it as But with grass
Wipe yer ^$$.
It was the plains remember
LookingHard wrote:I heard it as
But with grass
Wipe yer ^$$.
It was the plains remember
I ‘ve never heard that! Haaa!!
😆 All is swell! All is swell!
Now you guys have me remembering every potty humored joke we would tell around the campfire when I was scout age. With fondness
Years ago, DH and I were sitting in a baptist church, waiting for our daughter who was involved in a community activity there. We got flipping through a baptist hymnal. This song was there. I think they called it All Is Well. A few verses were modified .. But it was there .. And I was stunned. Here is a link:
http://www.losthymnsproject.com/14_Texts/Come_Come_Ye_Saints.pdf And another to the Seventh Day Adventist’s Hymnal. They use it too.
Interesting about the song in other hymnals. Having visited other churches we often encounter tunes that we are familiar with but that have modified or completely different words. (I suspect it is generally our church that has done the modifying actually – as in “How Great Thou Art.”) Of course, early members were also likely familiar with regular hymn tunes and just wrote different words with a Mormon bent. FWIW, we didn’t sing this or any other pioneer hymns on Sunday. DW said they didn’t sing pioneer songs in Primary either. Our SM topic was missionary work, although my personal topic was different (I was comparing different translations of the last supper as described in Luke).
Since I brought it up, just returning to report that we had talks on Sunday that appealed to all, and – bonus! – we sang Come, Come Ye Saints at a great tempo.
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