There's one, some drivel about "you for me and me for you" from "The Iona Community", whatever that is, sung to a version of The Shearing's Not For You (aka Kelvin Grove), which turns an unbelievably lovely melody into a trite dotted-crotchet jingle.

The Iona Community are an okay bunch of people, whatever their musical tastes.

http://www.iona.org.uk


has anyone noticed the remarkable similarity between the meoldy of It's gift to be Simple and passages from Hayden's Surprise symphony?

It's much closer to a tune quoted in one of Bartok's Rhapsodies for violin and orchestra (predating Copland's use of it by about ten years). I'd guess that Haydn and Bartok both got it from Hungarian-or-nearby folk tradition, and that the same tune made its way to the US from central Europe.


Anybody know what if anything "And did those feet in ancient time" (lyric by William Blake) was sung to before Parry composed "Jerusalem"?

I'd be very surprised if there were any setting of it. Parry wrote it in 1916 for a women's suffrage meeting:

Hubert Parry and Jerusalem

and surely Blake's radicalism was the point. That would not have been acceptable in mainstream churches before then.