"The Volunteer Organist" is a

Christian music Christian music is music that has been written to express either personal or a communal belief regarding Christian life and faith. Common themes of Christian music include praise, worship, penitence, and lament, and its forms vary widely around ...

ballad A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...

written by William B. Gray and George Spaulding. It was initially published under the pseudonyms W. B. Glenroy and Henry Lamb.

Content

The song tells the story of a Sunday

church service A church service (or a service of worship) is a formalized period of Christian communal worship, often held in a church building. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday, or Saturday in the case of those churches practicing seventh-day Sa ...

. The preacher informs the congregation that their usual organist is ill, and asks for a volunteer to play. A ragged-looking man staggers to the organ. The congregation assumes he is drunk, but he plays a beautiful melody that is more moving than the preacher's sermon. When he finishes, the organist gets up and leaves, while the congregation sits in amazed silence until the preacher asks them to pray. The song's refrain uses a musical passage from an older hymn, the

Old Hundredth "Old 100th" or "Old Hundredth" (also known as "Old Hundred") is a hymn tune in long metre, from the second edition of the Genevan Psalter. It is one of the best known melodies in many occidental Christian musical traditions. The tune is usually a ...

, contrasted with more modern elements typical of

Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a collection of music publishers and songwriters in New York City that dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It originally referred to a specific place: West 28th Street ...

songs.

History

Gray's lyrics are based on an earlier folk tale. Poet

Sam Walter Foss Sam Walter Foss (June 19, 1858 – February 26, 1911) was an American librarian and poet whose works included ''The House by the Side of the Road'' and ''The Coming American.'' Life and career image:Samfosshouse.JPG, left, Birthplace of Sam Foss ...

had published his own version of the story in 1889 in the ''Yankee Blade'', a magazine he edited. The Foss poem was reprinted in a number of newspapers and in his book ''Back Country Poems'', which was published in 1892. Gray wrote the lyrics in 1892. Spaulding added the music, and it was first published in 1893. The song was very popular, selling hundreds of thousands of copies in its first decade.

Adaptations

The song had variety of adaptations in other media. Gray used the story as the basis of a play in 1901. The play was first presented in Middletown, New York in April 1901, then toured North America. The expanded version of the story is set it in a village in

Vermont Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...

. It focuses on the evils of

drunkenness Alcohol intoxication, also known as alcohol poisoning, commonly described as drunkenness or inebriation, is the negative behavior and physical effects caused by a recent consumption of alcohol. In addition to the toxicity of ethanol, the main p ...

and is generally associated with the

temperance movement The temperance movement is a social movement promoting temperance or complete abstinence from consumption of alcoholic beverages. Participants in the movement typically criticize alcohol intoxication or promote teetotalism, and its leaders emph ...

. Gray then used the script from the play as the basis for a novel, which was published by J. S. Ogilvie in 1902. A

silent movie ''Silent Movie'' is a 1976 American satirical comedy film co-written, directed by and starring Mel Brooks, released by 20th Century Fox in the summer of 1976. The ensemble cast includes Dom DeLuise, Marty Feldman, Bernadette Peters, and Sid Cae ...

adaptation was released in 1913.

References

External links

Images of the sheet music
from the Levy Sheet Music Collection at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

* – e-book of the novel {{DEFAULTSORT:Volunteer Organist, The Songs about musicians 1893 songs American songs Christian songs Folk ballads