Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace

WILLIAM WALKER - CREATOR OF THE MUSIC FOR 

AMAZING GRACE

One of the tunes in our ukelele playbook is the hymn Amazing Grace. It is a popular song among us ukelele aficionados probably because it is easy to play and most of us are familiar with it, including me. The hymn is likely the most well-known and best loved song performed in churches across the United States.

The lyrics were written by an Englishman named John Newton in 1772 in collaboration with a poet named William Cowper. The song was initially chanted without music or read aloud to the congregation. Music was added to the song some 63 years after it was written and the hymn increased in popularity around the world thereafter. Amazing Grace became an especially popular in America as it was used by Baptists and Methodist preachers as part of their evangelizing, especially in the American South. In 1835, American composer William Walker finally set the song it to a tune known as "New Britain" using notes that made the tune easy to sing. As a reminder, here are the lyrics. I bet that you can’t read them aloud without wanting to burst into song.

Amazing Grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.

 T’was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, How precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come. ‘Tis grace hath bro’t me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home. The Lord has promised good to me, His words my hope secure,

He will my shield and portion be, as long as life endures.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun.           

Newton had a checkered career before he began writing poems for hymns. His father was a sailor and Newton gravitated to the same profession. At the age of eleven, he joined his father on a ship as an apprentice; however, his seagoing career would be marked by headstrong disobedience. His disobedience caused him to be pressed into the Royal Navy, where he continued his wayward ways. After some years, he deserted the navy to visit Mary "Polly" Catlett, a family friend with whom he had fallen in love. After enduring humiliation for deserting, he was traded as part of a crew that served on a slave ship. Thereafter he began a career in slave trading.

He recognized his own failings as he said “A common drunkard or profligate is a petty sinner [compared] to what I was.” While aboard the ship Greyhound, Newton gained notoriety as being one of the most profane men his captain had ever met. In a culture where sailors habitually swore, Newton was admonished several times for not only using the worst words the captain had ever heard but creating new ones to exceed the limits of his verbal debauchery. Such was the life of Newton during the years that he worked on a slave ship Greyhound.

In March 1748, while the Greyhound was in the North Atlantic, a violent storm came upon the ship that was so rough it swept overboard a crew member who was standing where Newton had been moments before. After long hours of the crew emptying water from the ship and expecting to be capsized, Newton and another mate tied themselves to the ship's pump to keep from being washed overboard, working for several hours. After proposing the measure to the captain, Newton had turned and said, "If this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us!” Newton rested briefly before returning to the deck to steer for the next eleven hours. During his time at the wheel, he pondered his divine challenge. Newton’s life began to change after this storm although Newton continued in the slave trade through several voyages where he sailed the coasts of Africa, now as a captain, and procured slaves being offered for sale in larger ports, transporting them to North America.

The slave trade was among the worst outrages that humans brought upon the heads of other humans who were easily identified by their black skins. Given today’s standards, it is difficult to understand how our forebears had so little regard for human life as those who worked in the slave trade. Newton continued in the slave trade until 1754 or 1755 when he ended his seafaring career and began studying Christian theology. After he completed his studies, he was ordained in the Church of England and was assigned to serve as a Curate in a place known as Olney. It was here that Newton wrote the poem that became the basis for the hymn Amazing Grace.

His new hymn was written to illustrate a sermon on New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music accompanying the verses; it may have been chanted by the congregation without accompaniment by musical instruments. It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton's and Cowper's Olney Hymns, but settled into relative obscurity in England until it became known in the United States and set to music.

With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of sins committed, and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most recognizable songs in the English-speaking world. [Editor's note: Much of the foregoing came from Wikipedia, including the text color and underlining.