Tonight for FHE, we sang "Book of Mormon Stories" for both the opening and closing song. (Julia's choice) This brought to light two things that I've noticed lately about the song. First, neither Shannon nor I are too sure about the exact lyrics in the second verse. We get the gist of it, but we're never sure if the Lamanites are "meeting", "seeking", "finding" or "other-verb-ing" others who are seeking liberty.
The other thing is, did Elizabeth Fetzer Bates ever actually read the Book of Mormon? I mean, think about the lyrics.
"Book of Mormon stories that my teacher tells to me are about the Lamanites in ancient history."
The Book of Mormon is about the Lamanites? Really? I'm pretty sure it follows the Nephites quite a bit more. The Lamanites are kinda the bad guys. The most notable good-guy Lamanite is Samuel, and his back story is pretty much "so, this Lamanite just showed up one day and said a bunch of stuff. We couldn't hit him with rocks, and then he left and we never heard from him again." Maybe the cop-out here is that Sister Bates had a teacher that only liked to tell the Lamanite stories? (Samuel, Lamoni, etc.)
"Lamanites met others who were seeking liberty"
Ah, turns out it's "seeking". Again, verse two starts with the Lamanites. No mention of the Nephites yet. And they met "others" who were seeking liberty. That must mean they have met two separate groups who are seeking liberty, because the Lamanites certainly aren't one of those groups. Unless the song is talking about the Lamanites seeking the liberty to bash in some Nephite skulls. But that can't be it, because the Nephites aren't in this song.
vs 4: "Abinadi . . . all chained up from head to toe"
Actually, no chains in the scriptural account. But, they are in the famous picture.
vs 8: "After Christ was crucified . . . He came forth to teach the truth"
I'm not sure why Christ's visit to the Nephites (note: not the Lamanites) is the 8th verse. Has anyone ever gotten this far in the song? All those primary kids hands would be numb from banging on their scriptures at the end of each line by verse 5 or 6, I think. The crowing event - the Most Important Story of the whole book, one might say - should be somewhere in the first couple of verses, I would think. I get that it's a big finish and all, but, really, way to bury the lead (lede?). (The answer to this is probably that the "optional" verses were written years later by Nancy K. Daines Carter.)
Sister Bates would be turning 105 this year, so she's probably not around to answer these important questions about one of Primary's defining songs. Obviously, La-man-ites fits in the song much better than Ne-ee-phites, so we can't make a simple swap to fix things up. The time to fix this would have been 1969 when the song was being written. Maybe I'll see if I can get my girls to pronounce it Ne-phi-ites . . .
4 comments:
I feel like I can answer some of these questions with some idea of the real answer, since Elizabeth was my piano teacher. I believe she did read the Book of Mormon many times. She often talked about her religious beliefs with me, as well her political ones for that matter, and it seemed she knew a lot about the Book of Mormon. I still remember these things from when I was 7 and 8.
As far as I can tell, the reason the song speaks about the Lamanites is they are the surviving group from the Book of Mormon narrative. Therefore, the Lamanites meeting others seeking liberty is likely referring to Lamanite ancestors meeting up with the likes of the pilgrims. Basically, the song is about how this land was populated by people who were led by God to a land of liberty. All of this is consistent with the things she told me as a child.
As for the other verses, she can't be held responsible. From what I remember, she only wrote the first 2 verses. When they came out with what is the current Children's Songbook someone took some artistic license and added the other verses.
Oh look, I actually read your post for actual comprehension after posting ;) I tend to skim a little too much these days, so already addressed the other author. Good on ya!
BOOM! Sabrina has all the answers. Thanks, Bean!
I hadn't thought of a more "modern day" explanation for the Lamanites in the song. So, there, we all learned something today.
This gives more meaning to the words "ancient history" and "long ago their fathers came". The music does also have a bit of a modern native american vibe to it, I think. (It's those base chords at the end of each line that has always made the song such a favorite. I'm not sure that this drum beating sort of rhythm is necessarily an accurate representation of Native American music, but I feel that it is at least a stereotypical one, accurate or not.)
All in all, it's a great primary song - that's why we're still singing it at my house regularly - despite my silly little blog post poking at it a bit.
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