Comments on: Old-Time Southern States Missionary Songs

By: queuno

queuno — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:10:21 +0000

Our mission song in Chile was probably a Neil Diamond song, since that was considered the outer edge of acceptable music by our mission president (almost everyone had a Neil Diamond cassette).

By: Left Field

Left Field — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:39:14 +0000

An elder I knew in my mission made up this song. There was more, but this is as much as I remember.

Missionaries ain’t easy to love and they’re harder to hold
They’d rather send you a letter, than diamonds or gold
Long rides on bicycles and old wrinkled white shirts
And each day begins before light.
If he don’t get transferred, if he don’t go home, he’ll probably just tract all day.

Mammas, please let your babies grow up to be missionaries
Don’t let ‘em pick guitars and drive them old trucks
Let ‘em read scriptures and Talmage and such
Mammas, please let your babies grow up to be missionaries
‘Cause they’re never alone, and they’re always with someone they love

By: Ray

Ray — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:25:22 +0000

I almost wish we had had a mission song when I served in Japan. Almost.

By: Ardis Parshall

Ardis Parshall — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:50:45 +0000

We’ll use our own imagination, L-d Sus — thanks!

By: L-d Sus

L-d Sus — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 17:33:51 +0000

Here is the entire Florida Tallahassee Mission Song. As previously mentioned it is song to the Marine Corp Hymn. I learned it in the late 1990s. I would guess that it was written sometime in the 1980s?

“From the shores of Steinhatchee, to the waves of Mobile shore, we will fight the Savior’s battle with a heart that’s clean and pure.

We’ll expound the Gospel principals. We’ll search and watch and pray.

We will teach and baptize multitudes as we serve from day-to-day.”

There was a set of mildly funny and mildly irreverent actions that went with the words. Out of laziness I won’t try to describe them here.

By: DCL

DCL — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:36:18 +0000

One of my favorite mission memories was when our retiring Japanese mission president announced at his last zone conference that he would now sing the Japan Okayama Mission Song. That was the first and last anyone ever heard of it and I think it is probably lost to history by now.

By: Hunter

Hunter — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:09:51 +0000

Oops. Did I just say that?

By: Hunter

Hunter — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:09:25 +0000

Our mission president’s wife wrote a new countermelody to be sung with “Called to Serve” that incorporated themes and references from our mission proper. I’ll see if I can’t find the words, although I’m afraid it might belong to that apparently long list of “namby, pamby” hymns.

By: BruceCrow

BruceCrow — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:06:30 +0000

Wow! I had no idea about this (not really a surprise). The lyrics for “Keep the old Love Burning” are wonderful. Much better that the drivel we would make up.

We made up some songs in Cantonese (sadly in English grammar) I wouldn’t even begin to translate. They made far more sense when I was there. I recall three. One sung to the tune “It’s a dead man’s party” (Oingo Boingo), one to the tune of “Leaving on a Jet Plane” (John Denver),and one to “Silver Bells” (the Christmas carol). Silver Bells was a rendition of common rejection phrases we would hear when tracting. The John Denver song was about the isolation of serving in Macau Branch, which was at the time another country. The Oingo Boingo song had to do with how local (Hong Kong born) missionaries would socialize together.

All three of them I could lump together in B.H. Roberts “namby, pamby, childish hymns.” I wonder if they are still being sung.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 02:49:43 +0000

See if you can dredge up more of that song, L-d Sus — it sounds interesting.

I will post more of the songs from this booklet over time. There’s one that starts out in a similar way to yours, although sung to “Battle Hymn of the Republic”:

From the broad Pacific Ocean
To the Gulf of Mexico,
To the Everglades of Florida
The Mormon Elders go.

Both are obvious tunes for young elders to parody, aren’t they? At least, they were easy to parody when we were in grade school singing about spit wads and teachers …