Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord

with
WOODLANDS

I. Origins

In some ways, the story of “Tell out, my soul” traces back two millennia to the song of Mary, the Magnificat, in Luke 1:46–55 (or perhaps even more distantly to its predecessor and model, the song of Hannah, 1 Sam. 2:1–10), and across a long heritage of chants, versifications, and choralizations—a noble tradition. But this particular interpretation was born in Vanburgh Park, Blackheath, South East London, in May 1961, where Anglican minister and hobbyist poet Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926–) was living while working as Assistant Secretary of the Church Pastoral Aid Society. He had come into possession of a new Bible translation, the New English Bible (1961), in which the first line of Mary’s song was rendered as “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord” (Fig. 1).

The New English Bible was a cooperative effort, involving representatives from multiple denominational bodies in England and Scotland. The translators of the New Testament had as their goal “to use the idiom of contemporary English to convey the meaning of the Greek” rather than to revise or update any previous historic translation. “We have conceived our task to be that of understanding the original as precisely as we could (using all available aids), and then saying again in our own native idiom what we believed the author to be saying in his,” they wrote, among other explanations as to their approach and process. Out of this painstaking process of translation by committee came this unique line, which inspired Rev. Dudley-Smith to turn it into a poem, but it remained a private composition for four years afterward. The author explained how it eventually came to light:

This metrical version of the Magnificat was not written as a hymn (at the time I believed that hymn writing was closed to me because I lack all musical ability), but simply as an attempt to take the start of the New English Bible translation of Luke 1:46 as the opening line of a lyric, and go on from there. Not long afterwards the editors of the forthcoming Anglican Hymn Book asked if I had written any hymns. I told them I did not write hymns; but on being pressed, showed them the verses.[1]

According to Christopher Idle, Rev. Dudley-Smith had, in fact, offered it elsewhere before it appeared in the Anglican Hymn Book: “He sent it to Scripture Union for the forthcoming Hymns of Faith ‘but they did not want it.’”[2] This might explain his reticence to offer it for the other project.

II. Tunes

1. TIDINGS

When the hymn was first printed in the Anglican Hymn Book (1965), it was paired with the tune TIDINGS by William Llewellyn (1925–), an adventurous, mixed-meter setting, apparently composed for this text. At the time, Llewellyn was assistant music master at the historic Charterhouse School in Godalming, Surrey, England (the music master was hymn tune composer John Wilson).

In this printing, the editors suggested two alternate tunes, JULIUS by Martin Shaw (1875–1958) and WOODLANDS (see below). This musical setting with TIDINGS was recorded on an LP, Hymns from the New Anglican Hymn Book (1965). Llewellyn’s tune has largely been passed over for other settings, especially the two below. Dudley-Smith did not care much for it himself and once had the misfortune of unwittingly saying so in front of the composer:

The [Anglican Hymn Book] was promoted at a big clergy conference in Church House, Westminster, in January 1964, where this new hymn was sung for the first time. I was at home, recovering from a burst appendix, but I heard a recording, and thought it a fiasco: the assembled clergy, quite unrehearsed, struggled with unknown words to an unfamiliar tune. Had I been present I should have cringed; indeed, I did so merely listening at home.

Years later, in a talk, I mentioned this incident, and said that the text had been set “to a quite unsingable tune.” A modest voice from the back of the room piped up: “I wrote the tune,” and there was the composer, William Llewellyn himself. I apologized in some confusion that I had thoughtlessly used that word, when I ought to have explained that any new tune set to new words is bound to need practice.[3]

In spite of that awkward introduction, Llewellyn later edited several music editions of Dudley-Smith’s hymns, from 2006 to 2013.

2. TELL OUT MY SOUL

Through his work at the Church Pastoral Aid Society, Dudley-Smith led the publication of Youth Praise (1966 | Fig. 3), together with composer and music editor Michael Baughen (1930–). For this collection, Baughen composed a new tune for “Tell out, my soul,” appropriately called TELL OUT, MY SOUL. Labeled “With a swing,” it was intended to have a light jazz feel with a backbeat and syncopations. This is evidenced mostly in the accompaniment, whereas the melody remains squarely on the beat until the final phrase. In this printing, the words and melody were both copyrighted 1962.

3. WOODLANDS

When “Tell out, my soul” was included in a supplement for the 1950 edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern called 100 Hymns for Today (1969), it was set to the tune WOODLANDS by Walter Greatorex (1877–1949). Timothy Dudley-Smith explained the connection:

The use of the hymn has been greatly encouraged by setting it to Walter Greatorex’s tune WOODLANDS, a choice which I owe primarily to the editors of 100 Hymns for Today. The combination is an interesting one in that both he and I (though we never met, and belong to different generations) were at school in Derbyshire and later associated with Norfolk. Greatorex was music master at Gresham’s School, Holt, from 1911 [to 1936] (he died in 1949); while I came to Norfolk as Archdeacon of Norwich in 1973. ‘Woodlands’ is the name of one of the houses at Gresham’s.[4]

This tune was first published in the Public School Hymn Book (London: Novello, 1919 | Fig. 4), where it was set to the text “‘Lift up your hearts!’ We lift them, Lord, to thee,” by Henry Montagu Butler (1833–1918). Some sources indicate the tune was written in 1916.

The tune’s dramatic quality sets it apart from many other Magnificat settings, which tend to lean into the humble nature of the Christ child’s mother. J.R. Watson said of this pairing of Dudley-Smith’s text to the Greatorex tune, “This robust tune, with a forceful rhythm and a dramatic high note on ‘soul’ in the first line, carries the words superbly.”[5] Reformed scholar Bert Polman wrote, “A dramatic tune, WOODLANDS is marked by irresistible melodic gestures and by the ‘breathless’ cadence of line 2, which propels us forward into line 3.”[6] He also described the tone of the hymn in relation to other settings of the Magnificat, while at the same time dismissing the emotional complexity Mary might have felt:

As Mary herself referred to her “low estate” or servanthood, interpreters occasionally suggest that a tone of humility should characterize the Magnificat; some hymnals have even linked her canticle to insipid tunes that make the Magnificat sound like the mumbling of an introvert teenager who is shamed by an unplanned pregnancy. Not so with this hymnic version by Timothy Dudley-Smith! Using the incipit line from the New English Bible, he cast Mary’s song as a bold hymn of thanksgiving, a jubilant psalm that praises God for divine blessings, mercy, might, and faithfulness. The four tightly constructed stanzas ring with a joy that requires a typically Hebraic “shouting from the mountain top.”[7]

III. Editions

Throughout his career, Timothy Dudley-Smith has issued several collected editions of his hymns with commentary and publication data. “Tell out, my soul” has been included in A Collection of Hymns 1961–1981 (1981), Lift Every Heart (1984), and A House of Praise (2003).

IV. Analysis

In terms of the hymn’s similarity to its source material, the first line is identical, then in the rest of the first stanza, he incorporated words like “tender” and “rejoice.” In each stanza, the first line begins “Tell out, my soul”; the second time, the author declares the name, references the Savior’s might, the deeds of his arm, and his mercy (shortening “generation to generation” to the more manageable “age to age”), the holy nature of that name, then another direct quote, “the Lord, the Mighty One.” In order to make the hymn suitable for a congregational viewpoint, he omitted some first-person statements by Mary (“all generations will count me blessed,” etc.). Regarding the second stanza, Lutheran pastor William M. Cwirla connected the might of the Lord to an Old Testament precedent:

The outstretched arm of the Lord (Exodus 6:6) is the prophetic image of God at work in Christ by His incarnation to do battle with sin, devil, and death and to take on Himself the curse of the Law on behalf of humanity. The Lord, the “Mighty One,” is mighty to save. The irony of this prophetic image in that the might of God to save is manifested by the weakness of Jesus’ death on the cross.[8]

In the third stanza, the might of the Savior is cited again, describing the powers of the earth are brought low, as are the “arrogant of heart,” while the hungry and humble are rewarded. Finally, the author proclaims the word of the Lord and offers a near-quote from the NEB “firm in his promise” and another nod to mercy. He skipped over the names of Israel and Abraham, but ended his hymn with another near-quote, this time of Luke 1:55, “his children’s children, for ever.”

In that last stanza, Cwirla saw in the hymn a global scope: “The Magnificat thus has a missionary thrust: the promised Seed of Abraham is a promise for the blessing of all nations. The faith that confesses the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation in Christ is something handed on from one generation to the next, unchanging and unchangeable.”[9]

For Stanley Osborne, the hymn’s attachment to Mary is secondary to its real focus: “The author, Timothy Dudley-Smith, is really proclaiming ‘the greatness of the Lord’ and calls upon the singer to witness to ‘his name . . . his might . . . his word’. The diction is forthright, the cause is urgent, and the time is ripe.”[10]

V. Legacy

J.R. Watson saw the hymn as an inflection point not just for the emerging career of Timothy Dudley-Smith, but for his generation of writers:

There had been other writers of contemporary hymns before this, notably Albert Bayly, but the success of this version showed hymn-writers that new but traditional hymns could be popular if they were well written and set to a suitable tune. In this case, the secret lies in the superb accommodation of the words to the line, which gives a sense of assured confidence in the writing, which carries over into the singing.[11]

In earlier work, Watson offered an even stronger endorsement:

I suspect that in that line [“Tell out, my soul,” etc.] Dudley-Smith provided the detonator for what has been called the ‘hymn explosion’ of the last forty years; we shall never know what might have been, but it is possible to speculate that if he had not realized the strength of these words as a hymn line, a pentameter rich with the pauses and rhythms of ordinary speech, and yet also distinctive in its diction (‘Tell out’ suggests a bell), shape and command, others would not have been inspired to write modern hymns.[12]

Timothy Dudley-Smith has resisted this characterization as a catalyst, saying of the movement, “It had no single beginning. It was spontaneous, diffuse, and unorganized, and it is difficult to resist the conclusion that it was somehow the gift of the creative spirit.”[13] Late in life, he reflected on the success of the hymn, which he believed was related to factors he had not considered when he wrote it, especially in relation to rapidly evolving tastes and sensitivities in the English language:

There are several distinct factors which helped it towards acceptance, none of which were remotely present in my mind when I was writing it. First, it escapes “thee and thou” language, which in 1961 was still by far the most familiar use in hymns. . . . At that time I would have found “you” and “your” very difficult to handle, as is shown by the fact that in the Anglican Hymn Book my other early text, “Lord, who left the highest heaven,” was published with “thy” in every verse.

Second, again through no forethought of mine, “Tell out, my soul” is a text “based on” the Scriptures, and so common to all Christian traditions. Moreover, it offered a version of a Book of Common Prayer canticle at a time when the modernizing of liturgical language was in the air; and the fact that it was on the “Song of Mary” made it attractive across the denominations, not least in Roman Catholic circles.

Finally, though at that time I had never heard of “gender-inclusive language,” I was spared the future problems that would have limited the usefulness of the text had it made reference to “men” or “sons” or “brothers” in a way that was soon to become unacceptable to editors, at first in North America, and then more widely. But of this, back in the 1960s, I was totally unaware.

There was, too, one further and highly significant factor in my favour, that the hymn was written at or near the start of the “hymn explosion” which . . . meant that editors were actively considering new texts.[14]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
14 December 2021
rev. 5 January 2022

Footnotes:

1. Timothy Dudley-Smith, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” A House of Praise (2003), p. 421.

2. Christopher Idle, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Exploring Praise! vol. 1 (Darlington: Praise Trust, 2006), pp. 424–425.

3. Timothy Dudley-Smith, A Functional Art: Reflections of a Hymn Writer (Oxford: University Press, 2017), p. xvi.

4. Timothy Dudley-Smith, “Tell out, my soul,” Lift Every Heart (1984), p. 260.

5. J.R. Watson, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), p. 409.

6. Bert Polman, “Tell out, my soul,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (Grand Rapids: CRC, 1998), p. 646.

7. Bert Polman, “Tell out, my soul,” The Hymn, vol. 42, no. 4 (Oct. 1991), p. 39: HathiTrust

8. William M. Cwirla, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (2019), p. 1506.

9. William M. Cwirla, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Lutheran Service Book Companion to the Hymns, vol. 1 (2019), p. 1507.

10. Stanley L. Osborne, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” If Such Holy Song (Whitby, Ontario: Institute of Church Music, 1976), no. 495.

11. J.R. Watson, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” An Annotated Anthology of Hymns (Oxford: University Press, 2002), p. 409.

12. J.R. Watson, The English Hymn (Oxford: University Press, 1997), p. 28; see also p. 345.

13. Timothy Dudley-Smith, A Functional Art: Reflections of a Hymn Writer (Oxford: University Press, 2017), p. 19.

14. Timothy Dudley-Smith, A Functional Art: Reflections of a Hymn Writer (Oxford: University Press, 2017), p. xvii.

Additional Resources:

Edward Darling & Donald Davison, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005), pp. 915–916.

Leland Ryken, “Tell out, my soul,” 40 Favorite Hymns on the Christian Life (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R, 2019), pp. 95–97: Amazon

Christopher Idle, “Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology: http://www.hymnology.co.uk/t/tell-out,-my-soul,-the-greatness-of-the-lord

“Tell out, my soul, the greatness of the Lord,” Hymnary.org: https://hymnary.org/text/tell_out_my_soul_the_greatness_of_the_lo