Happy Land: A Song History

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“Happy Land” is the tune name attached to “There is a happy land,” a children’s hymn by the Scottish schoolteacher Andrew Young; according to the Sounding Childhood project at USC, he set his words to an Indian tune a friend had played on the piano, wrote them for his own Edinburgh school, and let James Gall publish them.[1] Sources differ on the date: the Sacred Harp index and the Cyber Hymnal give 1838 for the words, while Sounding Childhood ties the hymn to Gall’s Sacred Song Book of 1843.[2][3][1] Sounding Childhood also cites the hymnologist John Julian’s report that it was “heard in Sunday Schools all over the world.”[1]

Early photograph of a columned classical building behind a long railing on Calton Hill, Edinburgh

Hill and Adamson, Old Royal High School, Calton Hill, Edinburgh, salted paper print from paper negative, 1843–47. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Edinburgh in the decade the hymn appeared, shown for its time and place; it has no known connection to Andrew Young.

In American shape-note books, the melody carries the name of Leonard P. Breedlove.[4][2] The 1854 edition of The Southern Harmony prints HAPPY LAND as No. 89b under Breedlove’s name,[4] and The Sacred Harp sets Young’s words on page 354b, crediting the music as “Arr. L. P. Breedlove, 1850.”[2] The Cyber Hymnal likewise names Breedlove as arranger of a tune it labels a “Hindustani air.”[3]

An Indian air on one side and a Breedlove credit on the other can make these look like two separate tunes, but in hymnary.org’s catalog they are one: its HAPPY LAND entry groups the Sacred Harp setting, Breedlove-credited hymnals, and books that describe the tune as an Indian melody together.[5] That entry counts it in 259 hymnals, from English-language books to Arabic, Malagasy and Chinese hymnals.[5] Breedlove appears as arranger in The Sacred Harp but simply as composer in some hymnary.org listings, so the sources consulted here leave his exact role open.[2][5]

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Sources

  1. Sounding Childhood (USC Scalar): "There is a happy land".
  2. fasola.org: "Indexes for The Sacred Harp, 1991 Edition: 354b Happy Land".
  3. Hymnary.org (The Cyber Hymnal): "6793. There Is a Happy Land".
  4. Hymnary.org: "The Southern Harmony, and Musical Companion (1854), no. 89b".
  5. Hymnary.org: "HAPPY LAND (33235)".