Gender-specific lyrics

Tarby777 · 06-11-2007, 06:10 AM

Hi all,

I taught the Delirious song "Majesty" to my church this week, and they loved it! I had a couple of issues with it:

First, the range between the lowest note and highest note is unusually wide for a worship song, and having tried three different keys, we eventually settled on B major, and just about got away with it! It makes the "greatest sacrifice" bit at the end of the pre-chorus a little lower than I'd like, but at least the guys aren't having to strain *too* much to sing the chorus.

The other issue - and the reason I'm posting - is the line "knowing I'm a sinful man". I was wondering how the ladies feel when they come to sing that line. Some girlie friends attended a ladies-only conference last week which featured Delirious and apparently they kept that line in without any changes. I had mulled over the idea of changing to "knowing I'm the sinful one" or something like that. Nobody mentioned it on Sunday, so I'm guessing it's not a big deal to people. I'm just curious to find out whether anyone else uses Majesty as a congregational worship song and if so, whether they had any issues with that lyric...

TIA
Tarby

Jay Tea · 06-11-2007, 06:39 AM

To your second point, we've had similar issues with other songs. Our old worship director was generally opposed to lines like that, but other women on the worship teams didn't have any problem with them. So, really, it's the sort of thing that's going to vary from person to person.

Joe F · 06-11-2007, 07:41 AM

We have a couple like that. The chorus in 'My Savior My God' is "That You would leave Your place on high, to come for sinful man to die". And we also do 'Wonderful Merciful Savior' which has the line "Who would have thought that a Lamb could, rescue the souls of man, oh You rescue the souls of man."

None of the female singers or congregation members seem to mind. Singing "Knowing I'm a sinful man" makes it a little more first person, but I think it would be fine.

nate95366 · 06-11-2007, 08:51 AM

It's poetry, and as such, I would suppose it is up to the reader to decipher whether the writer means "man" in the sense of "people of the male gender" or "man" in the sense of "all of mankind." I would hope that feminist critics would at least scale down their attack against the second type, and that's the type that is more commonly used in church song lyrics.

Maybe at some informal time you could get a show of hands of people who are honestly distracted by the line while singing it and end up thinking feminist-critic-like thoughts in place of thinking about the majesty of Christ...?

Nate

gtrdave · 06-11-2007, 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe F

None of the female singers or congregation members seem to mind. Singing "Knowing I'm a sinful man" makes it a little more first person, but I think it would be fine.

Maybe changing the words to "Knowing I'm sinful, man!" would work???

Tarby777 · 06-11-2007, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nate95366

Maybe at some informal time you could get a show of hands of people who are honestly distracted by the line while singing it and end up thinking feminist-critic-like thoughts in place of thinking about the majesty of Christ...?Nate

Maybe I could, but at the same time you'd have to admit that you'd feel pretty odd singing "knowing I'm a sinful woman"... which is the position I'd find myself in if Delirious were a girl band!

I think there's more to it than whether someone gets irritated because of some underlying feminist ideas they might hold onto. Some things are just a bit weird to sing for certain people... in the UK in the 90s, we had a few songs using imagery from Song of Songs and it freaked some of us guys out! I'm certainly not at ease singing about Jesus as my lover. Maybe that highlights some insecurity in me... whatever. I think the important thing is that we worship leaders have to give serious thought to how people will feel singing the songs we put in front of them... hence my original question.

God bless,
Tarby

Tarby777 · 06-11-2007, 09:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gtrdave

Maybe changing the words to "Knowing I'm sinful, man!" would work???

Nah, you've changed the meter of it there! It needs to be "Knowing I'm... like... sinful, man!"

Nate · 06-11-2007, 12:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarby777

Maybe I could, but at the same time you'd have to admit that you'd feel pretty odd singing "knowing I'm a sinful woman"... which is the position I'd find myself in if Delirious were a girl band!

Not likely. Using "man" to refer to a non-gender-specific person has been pretty commonplace in poetry, academia, and all other forms of literature for centuries, and the usage has come from both male and female writers. It's entirely unlikely that Delirious would have sung "knowing I'm a sinful woman" even if they were a girl band, because the line is just referring to a person in general and not to any particular person or type (i.e. gender) of person.

Elizabeth · 06-11-2007, 01:51 PM

I'm a girl. I don't have a problem with it. I've never heard any girls complain about this song (or others like it).

LefseRae · 06-11-2007, 02:48 PM

I'm a girl. I have no problem with it. It's just good English grammar, for one thing.

nate95366 · 06-12-2007, 08:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarby777

Maybe I could, but at the same time you'd have to admit that you'd feel pretty odd singing "knowing I'm a sinful woman"... which is the position I'd find myself in if Delirious were a girl band!

I think there's more to it than whether someone gets irritated because of some underlying feminist ideas they might hold onto. Some things are just a bit weird to sing for certain people... in the UK in the 90s, we had a few songs using imagery from Song of Songs and it freaked some of us guys out! I'm certainly not at ease singing about Jesus as my lover. Maybe that highlights some insecurity in me... whatever. I think the important thing is that we worship leaders have to give serious thought to how people will feel singing the songs we put in front of them... hence my original question.

I understand what you're saying, but at the same time I would wonder this:

Is there a "line in the sand" somewhere at which we've got to stop accounting for every possible mis-interpretation of song lyrics and just go ahead and sing the song?

I know it must be a bit harder when our own personal mis-interpretations jump to the front of our minds while we sing the song.

Nate

**DaGeek** · 06-12-2007, 11:40 AM

Whenever I hear a line such as "Knowing I'm a sinful man," or, "That You would leave Your place on high, to come for sinful man to die," I think of it as saying "mankind." I believe I am correct in saying that the Bible references mankind as "man" sometimes?

tl_guitarnut · 06-12-2007, 12:34 PM

I guess I never really thought of this. But yeah if I had to sing a song the other way it would honestly be distracting and frankly quite strange.