Frequent RCBB concert-goers know that our programs have a high proportion of tunes that are familiar and beloved. It turns out that what’s familiar is a moving target, and it’s moving faster than I thought.

The March subscription series, ON A WORLD TOUR, includes a singalong, “Jerusalem”, that I felt certain would be familiar and joyfully sung by RCBB audiences. The song’s lyric is by William Blake from his epic “Milton: a Poem” (1804).

Blake’s poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, traveled to Glastonbury, England.

The poem was included in a patriotic anthology of verse published in England in 1916 when England was suffering an appallingly high number of casualties in the First World War. Robert Bridges, England’s Poet Laureate, asked Hubert Parry to put this poem to music in an attempt to bolster civilian morale.

The tune itself is so well liked that it has been set to several texts including “O Love of God, how strong and true”, performed at Ronald Reagan’s funeral at Washington National Cathedral in 2004.

At the first concert of the RCBB March series I introduced the tune to the audience, got the house lights up, and started the singalong. Much to my consternation, the singalong had no singing. No more than a handful of people in the audience knew the song.

The interesting thing is that the RCBB performed “Jerusalem” as a singalong one other time, in March 1989, on a series entitled CASTLES, CAIRNS AND COLLIERIES (Bob Bernat, conducting). I was playing in the ensemble back then, and remember that the audience knew the tune very well indeed.

In less than 20 years “Jerusalem” has fallen from enjoying the status of ‘familiar’ off the cliff into oblivion. Fascinating. I will be thinking very carefully about what songs to offer as singalongs from now on, that’s for sure.