The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #47385   Message #708218
Posted By: Art Thieme
10-May-02 - 11:58 AM
Thread Name: Atheist Hymnal
Subject: RE: Atheist Hymnal
Look, guys, this is a valid request from this GUEST. I'm reminded of a line in Somerset Maugham's fine novel about the main character, Larry Darrell, when someone takes note of the fact that, "Larry, you are simply an extremely spiritual man who doesn't believe in God."

Try songs like

Gordon Bok's "Turning Toward The Morning"--- written about somebody we both know, Jerry.
"Simple Gifts"----
the balld "The Bitter Withy"---
"The Friggin' Falcon"---
"Come All You Hardy Miners" (a labor song of organizing in the coal mines -- and many others)---
Joanie Mitchell's "Circle Game"---
"Come And Go With Me To That Land" (which can be simply a song about going from "here" to "there")---
"Deadheads and Suckers How Can You Live -- when good men are dying every day"
Tom Dundee's great song "Delicate Balance"
"Down By The Riverside"
"From Here On Up" --the hills don't get any higher but the hollers get deeper and deeper
"The Fox" (a song about wholesome family values and teaching the young about the realities of breadwinning.
"Amazing Grace"--sung to the Gilligan's Island theme song
"God Don't Like Ugly"--baby your home is in hell
"God Rest Ye Jerry Mendelbaum"(from Allan Sherman
"Master Of The Sheepfold"---maybe just about sheep and / or religiousinclusiveness...
"The Green Grass Grew All Around"
"Guabi Guabi" -- make it mean whatever you want it to mean
"A Handfull Of Songs" (ANOTHER kind of immortality--by Jerry Rasmussen)
"Hang Me Oh Hang Me"
"Here's To You Rounders" a pro-responsibility song
"Here's To Cheschire" / "Froggy Went A Courtin'" a matrimonial song showing that life will do to us what it will in spite of good intentions
"He Was A Friend Of Mine"
"100 Bottles Of Beer On The Wall"
"I'm On My Way And I Won't Turn Back"
"I Believe If I Lived My Life Again"--a sort of Buddhist hymn by Utah Phillips
"I Don't Want To Be Lost In The Slums"
"Michael Row The Boat Ashore"
"Passing Through"
"Pie In The Sky" by Joe Hill
"The Stories We Could Tell" by John Sebastian
"Strangest Dream" by Ed McCurdy
"Thanksgiving Eve" by Bob Franke
"Walkie In The Parlor"--an alternate (Irish) view of the creation
"WE Shall Overcome"

I'll end with a medley:

"Yiddish Is A Loving Tongue"

and

"Yassir, He's My Baby, No Sir, I Don't mean Maybe"

And these are only from my song list.

This fellow is looking for songs that are philosophically humanist and positive while not diving into the God myth that so many think of as "gospel".

Taken with all the other religions and philosophical systems of this world, the myth of Jehovah is just one of many---including pagan, Buddhist, Jewish and EVERYTHING ELSE.

Art Thieme