Abide With Me: A Song History

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Henry Francis Lyte (1793–1847) was born in Scotland, and his longest appointment was as perpetual curate of Lower Brixham in Devon, a post he took up in 1823.[1] On August 25, 1847, with his health failing, Lyte enclosed "Abide With Me" in a letter, calling it his latest piece of verse.[2] His daughter later wrote that after preaching his last sermon at Brixham that September, he gave the hymn to a close relative.[2][3] It was printed as a leaflet that year. Lyte died at Nice on November 20, 1847, and the hymn appeared in his posthumous Remains in 1850.[2][3] Sources differ about whether he drafted it earlier. One account, citing a 1925 magazine article, places a first version around 1820, when he visited a dying friend.[1] The Hymnology Archive does not mention that story and dates the hymn from the 1847 documents.[2]

Painting of a blazing red and gold sunset sky over a dark wilderness lake and forest

Frederic Edwin Church, Twilight in the Wilderness, oil on canvas, 1860. The Cleveland Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The melody almost everyone knows is EVENTIDE, by William Henry Monk, music editor of the first edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern (1861). He wrote it for that book.[1][2][4] Two stories describe how the tune was written. In one, Monk wrote it in about ten minutes when the committee found the text still had no tune. In the other, he wrote it in a time of grief while watching the sunset. The Hymnology Archive gives both and says the full truth may never be known.[2][3] The pairing has lasted ever since. Hymnary.org counts EVENTIDE in more than 1,200 hymnals.[4]

The hymn, with its imagery of nightfall and death, became a standard at funerals and memorial services.[1][3] That association makes its best-known secular role all the more striking. It has been sung at the English FA Cup final since 1927.[5][6] It was introduced there during what a writer in The Conversation calls a "short-lived, media-led enthusiasm for 'community singing'". By that time, the same writer argues, ordinary people would already have thought of it as music for death and grief.[6]

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Sources

  1. Discipleship Ministries (United Methodist Church): "History of Hymns: 'Abide with Me'".
  2. Hymnology Archive: "Abide with me".
  3. Hymnary.org: "Abide with me; fast falls the eventide".
  4. Hymnary.org: "EVENTIDE (Monk)".
  5. Wembley Stadium: "Sixty four fans to sing Abide with Me at The FA Cup Final".
  6. The Conversation: "A hymn confirms that the FA Cup final is a matter of life and death".