Monday, October 13, 2008

Happy-clappy songs are judged to have ruined Britain

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/jonathanwynnejones/blog/2008/10/09/happyclappy_songs_are_judged_to_have_ruined_britain

[Telegraph] 13 Oct 2008--Graham Kendrick - the author of such painful hymns as Shine, Jesus, Shine has been included amongst a list of 50 people responsible for ruining Britain.

Being placed alongside individuals as nauseating as Paul Burrell, Jeffrey Archer and Janet Street-Porter might seem a little harsh for someone whose only crime is to have penned more happy-clappy songs than anyone else.

Four hundred at the last count.

But it's hard to fault the argument.

"Happy-cr*ppy hymns are a pestilence," says Quentin Letts, a parliamentary sketchwriter.

"They demean adult worship, dragging it to a level even lower than that of Mrs C F Alexander's All Things Bright and Beautiful.

"They are self-obsessed, babyish, cliched, simplistic."

He stops there, but no doubt could have gone on.

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