God Is So Good: A Song History

← Back to Browse By Song

Where the short chorus "God Is So Good" came from is disputed, and the hymnals indexed at Hymnary.org credit it in conflicting ways.[1] The commentary on Hymnary.org's page for the Presbyterian Glory to God (2013) calls its origins unclear and says "it seems to have arisen during the 1970s."[2] Hymnary's main entry for the text tells a different story, sourced only to an email from a former director of the African Evangelical Fellowship in Australia: a song already sung across Africa before 1960, whose words the church leader Paul Makai wrote down in his own language and the missionary Marilyn Foulkes put into English.[1] The site's tune entry likewise credits Makai, dating his work to about 1970 on the strength of the same email.[3] Glory to God itself prints both words and music as anonymous.[2] Other hymnals label its source as African, East African, or even an American folk hymn.[1]

Hand-painted illuminated letter O in blue, pink, green and gold beside black Gothic lettering and red music staff lines.

Freeman Gage Delamotte, Illuminated Initial from Hymnal, watercolor, pen and black and red ink over graphite with touches of gold and gouache, 1830–62. A decorated hymnal page, shown for its subject; it has no connection to this chorus.

The earliest hymnal Hymnary.org lists for it is Sing 'n' Celebrate (1971); of the 1973 books that follow, Folk Encounter gives its source as African.[1] Hymnary now counts it in more than sixty hymnals, from the Baptist Hymnal (1991) and the African American Heritage Hymnal (2001) to Glory to God, and lists versions in Spanish, Swahili, Korean and other languages.[1] Because the words hardly vary, the Glory to God commentary credits the tune's gradual climb, which never leaves a span of five notes, with giving the chorus its energy.[2]

Larry Conger includes it in Hymns, Spirituals, And Sacred Songs, a 36-page collection of classic gospel tunes for mountain dulcimer, mostly in DAD tuning, published by Fingers Of Steel.[4]

Our book that contains the song "God Is So Good"

Browse more tunes like this: Hymns & Gospel Dulcimer Tab

Sources

  1. Hymnary.org: "God is so good, God is so good".
  2. Hymnary.org: "God Is So Good" (Glory to God, 2013, #658).
  3. Hymnary.org: "GOD IS SO GOOD" (tune).
  4. Fingers Of Steel: "Larry Conger, Hymns, Spirituals, And Sacred Songs".
  5. Image: Freeman Gage Delamotte, Illuminated Initial from Hymnal, watercolor, pen and black and red ink over graphite with touches of gold and gouache, 1830–62. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

← Back to Browse By Song