= Amazing_Grace

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= Amazing_Grace_ =
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Introduction
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"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn written in 1772 and published in
1779 by English Anglican clergyman and poet John Newton (1725-1807).
It is possibly the most sung and most recorded hymn in the world, and
especially popular in the United States, where it is used for both
religious and secular purposes.

Newton wrote the words from personal experience; he grew up without
any particular religious conviction, but his life's path was formed by
a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion
by others' reactions to what they took as his recalcitrant
insubordination. He was pressed into service with the Royal Navy, and
after leaving the service, he became involved in the Atlantic slave
trade. In 1748, a violent storm battered his vessel off the coast of
County Donegal, Ireland, so severely that he called out to God for
mercy. While this moment marked his spiritual conversion, he continued
slave trading until 1754 or 1755, when he ended his seafaring
altogether. Newton began studying Christian theology and later became
an abolitionist.

Ordained in the Church of England in 1764, Newton became the curate of
Olney, Buckinghamshire, where he began to write hymns with poet
William Cowper. "Amazing Grace" was written to illustrate a sermon on
New Year's Day of 1773. It is unknown if there was any music
accompanying the verses; it may have been chanted by the congregation.
It debuted in print in 1779 in Newton's and Cowper's 'Olney Hymns',
but settled into relative obscurity in England. In the United States,
"Amazing Grace" became a popular song used by Baptist and Methodist
preachers as part of their evangelizing, especially in the American
South, during the Second Great Awakening of the early 19th century. It
has been associated with more than 20 melodies. In 1835, American
composer William Walker set it to the tune known as "New Britain" in a
shape note format; this is the version most frequently sung today.

With the message that forgiveness and redemption are possible
regardless of sins committed and that the soul can be delivered from
despair through the mercy of God, "Amazing Grace" is one of the most
recognisable songs in the English-speaking world. American historian
Gilbert Chase writes that it is "without a doubt the most famous of
all the folk hymns" and Jonathan Aitken, a Newton biographer,
estimates that the song is performed about 10 million times annually.

It has had particular influence in folk music, and has become an
emblematic black spiritual. Its universal message has been a
significant factor in its crossover into secular music. "Amazing
Grace" became newly popular during the 1960s revival of American folk
music, and it has been recorded thousands of times during and since
the 20th century.

John Newton's conversion
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According to the 'Dictionary of American Hymnology', "Amazing Grace"
is John Newton's spiritual autobiography in verse.

In 1725, Newton was born in Wapping, a district in London near the
Thames. His father was a shipping merchant who was brought up as a
Catholic but had Protestant sympathies, and his mother was a devout
Independent, unaffiliated with the Anglican Church. She had intended
Newton to become a clergyman, but she died of tuberculosis when he was
six years old. For the next few years, while his father was at sea
Newton was raised by his emotionally distant stepmother. He was also
sent to boarding school, where he was mistreated. At the age of
eleven, he joined his father on a ship as an apprentice; his seagoing
career would be marked by headstrong disobedience.

As a youth, Newton began a pattern of coming very close to death,
examining his relationship with God, then relapsing into bad habits.
As a sailor, he denounced his faith after being influenced by a
shipmate who discussed with him 'Characteristicks of Men, Manners,
Opinions, Times', a book by the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. In a series
of letters Newton later wrote, "Like an unwary sailor who quits his
port just before a rising storm, I renounced the hopes and comforts of
the Gospel at the very time when every other comfort was about to fail
me." His disobedience caused him to be pressed into the Royal Navy,
and he took advantage of opportunities to overstay his leave.

He deserted the navy to visit Mary "Polly" Catlett, a family friend
with whom he had fallen in love. After enduring humiliation for
deserting, he was traded as crew to a slave ship.

He began a career in slave trading.

Newton often openly mocked the captain by creating obscene poems and
songs about him, which became so popular that the crew began to join
in. His disagreements with several colleagues resulted in his being
starved almost to death, imprisoned while at sea, and chained like the
slaves they carried. He was himself enslaved by the Sherbro and forced
to work on a plantation in Sierra Leone near the Sherbro River. After
several months he came to think of Sierra Leone as his home, but his
father intervened after Newton sent him a letter describing his
circumstances, and crew from another ship happened to find him. Newton
claimed the only reason he left Sierra Leone was because of Polly.

While aboard the ship 'Greyhound', Newton gained notoriety as being
one of the most profane men the captain had ever met. In a culture
where sailors habitually swore, Newton was admonished several times
for not only using the worst words the captain had ever heard, but
creating new ones to exceed the limits of verbal debauchery. In March
1748, while the 'Greyhound' was in the North Atlantic, a violent storm
came upon the ship that was so rough it swept overboard a crew member
who was standing where Newton had been moments before. After hours of
the crew emptying water from the ship and expecting to be capsized,
Newton and another mate tied themselves to the ship's pump to keep
from being washed overboard, working for several hours. After
proposing the measure to the captain, Newton had turned and said, "If
this will not do, then Lord have mercy upon us!" Newton rested briefly
before returning to the deck to steer for the next eleven hours.
During his time at the wheel, he pondered his divine challenge.

About two weeks later, the battered ship and starving crew landed in
Lough Swilly, Ireland. For several weeks before the storm, Newton had
been reading 'The Christian's Pattern', a summary of the 15th-century
'The Imitation of Christ' by Thomas à Kempis. The memory of his own
"Lord have mercy upon us!" uttered during a moment of desperation in
the storm did not leave him; he began to ask if he was worthy of God's
mercy or in any way redeemable. Not only had he neglected his faith
but directly opposed it, mocking others who showed theirs, deriding
and denouncing God as a myth. He came to believe that God had sent him
a profound message and had begun to work through him.

Newton's conversion was not immediate, but he contacted Polly's family
and announced his intention to marry her. Her parents were hesitant as
he was known to be unreliable and impetuous. They knew he was profane
too but allowed him to write to Polly, and he set to begin to submit
to authority for her sake. He sought a place on a slave ship bound for
Africa, and Newton and his crewmates participated in most of the same
activities he had written about before; the only immorality from which
he was able to free himself was profanity. After a severe illness his
resolve was renewed, yet he retained the same attitude towards slavery
as was held by his contemporaries. Newton continued in the slave trade
through several voyages where he sailed the coasts of Africa, now as a
captain, and procured slaves being offered for sale in larger ports,
transporting them to North America.

In between voyages, he married Polly in 1750, and he found it more
difficult to leave her at the beginning of each trip. After three
shipping voyages in the slave trade, Newton was promised a position as
ship's captain with cargo unrelated to slavery. But at the age of
thirty, he collapsed and never sailed again.

Olney curate
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Working as a customs agent in Liverpool starting in 1756, Newton began
to teach himself Latin, Greek, and theology. He and Polly immersed
themselves in the church community, and Newton's passion was so
impressive that his friends suggested he become a priest in the Church
of England. He was turned down by John Gilbert, Archbishop of York, in
1758, ostensibly for having no university degree, although the more
likely reasons were his leanings toward evangelism and tendency to
socialise with Methodists. Newton continued his devotions, and after
being encouraged by a friend, he wrote about his experiences in the
slave trade and his conversion. William Legge, 2nd Earl of Dartmouth,
impressed with his story, sponsored Newton for ordination by John
Green, Bishop of Lincoln, and offered him the curacy of Olney,
Buckinghamshire, in 1764.

''Olney Hymns''
=================
Olney was a village of about 2,500 residents whose main industry was
making lace by hand. The people were mostly illiterate and many of
them were poor. Newton's preaching was unique in that he shared many
of his own experiences from the pulpit; many clergy preached from a
distance, not admitting any intimacy with temptation or sin. He was
involved in his parishioners' lives and was much loved, although his
writing and delivery were sometimes unpolished. But his devotion and
conviction were apparent and forceful, and he often said his mission
was to "break a hard heart and to heal a broken heart". He struck a
friendship with William Cowper, a gifted writer who had failed at a
career in law and suffered bouts of insanity, attempting suicide
several times. Cowper enjoyed Olney and Newton's company; he was also
new to Olney and had gone through a spiritual conversion similar to
Newton's. Together, their effect on the local congregation was
impressive. In 1768, they found it necessary to start a weekly prayer
meeting to meet the needs of an increasing number of parishioners.
They also began writing lessons for children.

Partly from Cowper's literary influence, and partly because learned
vicars were expected to write verses, Newton began to try his hand at
hymns, which had become popular through the language, made plain for
common people to understand. Several prolific hymn writers were at
their most productive in the 18th century, including Isaac Watts whose
hymns Newton had grown up hearing and Charles Wesley, with whom Newton
was familiar. Wesley's brother John, the eventual founder of the
Methodist Church, had encouraged Newton to go into the clergy. Watts
was a pioneer in English hymn writing, basing his work after the
Psalms. The most prevalent hymns by Watts and others were written in
the common meter in 8.6.8.6: the first line is eight syllables and the
second is six.

Newton and Cowper attempted to present a poem or hymn for each prayer
meeting. The lyrics to "Amazing Grace" were written in late 1772 and
probably used in a prayer meeting for the first time on 1 January
1773. A collection of the poems Newton and Cowper had written for use
in services at Olney was bound and published anonymously in 1779 under
the title 'Olney Hymns'. Newton contributed 280 of the 348 texts in
'Olney Hymns'; "1 Chronicles 17:16-17, Faith's Review and Expectation"
was the title of the poem with the first line "Amazing grace! (how
sweet the sound)".

Critical analysis
===================
The general impact of 'Olney Hymns' was immediate and it became a
widely popular tool for evangelicals in Britain for many years.
Scholars appreciated Cowper's poetry somewhat more than Newton's
plaintive and plain language, expressing his forceful personality. The
most prevalent themes in the verses written by Newton in 'Olney Hymns'
are faith in salvation, wonder at God's grace, his love for Jesus, and
his cheerful exclamations of the joy he found in his faith. As a
reflection of Newton's connection to his parishioners, he wrote many
of the hymns in first person, admitting his own experience with sin.
Bruce Hindmarsh in 'Sing Them Over Again To Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in
America' considers "Amazing Grace" an excellent example of Newton's
testimonial style afforded by the use of this perspective. Several of
Newton's hymns were recognised as great work ("Amazing Grace" was not
among them), while others seem to have been included to fill in when
Cowper was unable to write. Jonathan Aitken calls Newton, specifically
referring to "Amazing Grace", an "unashamedly middlebrow lyricist
writing for a lowbrow congregation", noting that only twenty-one of
the nearly 150 words used in all six verses have more than one
syllable.

William Phipps in the 'Anglican Theological Review' and author James
Basker have interpreted the first stanza of "Amazing Grace" as
evidence of Newton's realisation that his participation in the slave
trade was his wretchedness, perhaps representing a wider common
understanding of Newton's motivations. Newton joined forces with
William Wilberforce, the British Member of Parliament who led the
Parliamentarian campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British
Empire, culminating in the Slave Trade Act 1807. But Newton did not
become an ardent and outspoken abolitionist until after he left Olney
in the 1780s; he is not known to have connected writing the hymn known
as "Amazing Grace" to anti-slavery sentiments.

The lyrics in 'Olney Hymns' were arranged by their association to the
Biblical verses that would be used by Newton and Cowper in their
prayer meetings, and did not address any political objective. For
Newton, the beginning of the year was a time to reflect on one's
spiritual progress. At the same time he completed a diary which has
since been lost that he had begun 17 years before, two years after he
quit sailing. The last entry of 1772 was a recounting of how much he
had changed since then.

The title ascribed to the hymn, "1 Chronicles 17:16-17", refers to
David's reaction to the prophet Nathan telling him that God intends to
maintain his family line forever. Some Christians interpret this as a
prediction that Jesus Christ, as a descendant of David, was promised
by God as the salvation for all people. Newton's sermon on that
January day in 1773 focused on the necessity to express one's
gratitude for God's guidance, that God is involved in the daily lives
of Christians though they may not be aware of it, and that patience
for deliverance from the daily trials of life is warranted when the
glories of eternity await. Newton saw himself a sinner like David who
had been chosen, perhaps undeservedly, and was humbled by it.
According to Newton, unconverted sinners were "blinded by the god of
this world" until "mercy came to us not only undeserved but undesired
... our hearts endeavored to shut him out till he overcame us by the
power of his grace."

The New Testament served as the basis for many of the lyrics of
"Amazing Grace". The first verse, for example, can be traced to the
story of the Prodigal Son. In the Gospel of Luke the father says, "For
this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is
found". The story of Jesus healing a blind man who tells the Pharisees
that he can now see is told in the Gospel of John. Newton used the
words "I was blind but now I see" and declared "Oh to grace how great
a debtor!" in his letters and diary entries as early as 1752. The
effect of the lyrical arrangement, according to Bruce Hindmarsh,
allows an instant release of energy in the exclamation "Amazing
grace!", to be followed by a qualifying reply in "how sweet the
sound". In 'An Annotated Anthology of Hymns', Newton's use of an
exclamation at the beginning of his verse is called "crude but
effective" in an overall composition that "suggest(s) a forceful, if
simple, statement of faith". Grace is recalled three times in the
following verse, culminating in Newton's most personal story of his
conversion, underscoring the use of his personal testimony with his
parishioners.

The sermon preached by Newton was his last of those that William
Cowper heard in Olney, since Cowper's mental instability returned
shortly thereafter. One author suggests Newton may have had his friend
in mind, employing the themes of assurance and deliverance from
despair for Cowper's benefit.

Dissemination
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More than 60 of Newton and Cowper's hymns were republished in other
British hymnals and magazines, but "Amazing Grace" was not, appearing
only once in a 1780 hymnal sponsored by the Countess of Huntingdon.
Scholar John Julian commented in his 1892 'A Dictionary of Hymnology'
that outside of the United States, the song was unknown and it was
"far from being a good example of Newton's finest work". Between 1789
and 1799, four variations of Newton's hymn were published in the US in
Baptist, Dutch Reformed, and Congregationalist hymnodies; by 1830
Presbyterians and Methodists also included Newton's verses in their
hymnals.

Although it had its roots in England, "Amazing Grace" became an
integral part of the Christian tapestry in the United States. The
greatest influences in the 19th century that propelled "Amazing Grace"
to spread across the US and become a staple of religious services in
many denominations and regions were the Second Great Awakening and the
development of shape note singing communities. A tremendous religious
movement swept the US in the early 19th century, marked by the growth
and popularity of churches and religious revivals that got their start
on the frontier in Kentucky and Tennessee. Unprecedented gatherings of
thousands of people attended camp meetings where they came to
experience salvation; preaching was fiery and focused on saving the
sinner from temptation and backsliding. Religion was stripped of
ornament and ceremony, and made as plain and simple as possible;
sermons and songs often used repetition to get across to a rural
population of poor and mostly uneducated people the necessity of
turning away from sin. Witnessing and testifying became an integral
component to these meetings, where a congregation member or stranger
would rise and recount his turn from a sinful life to one of piety and
peace. "Amazing Grace" was one of many hymns that punctuated fervent
sermons, although the contemporary style used a refrain, borrowed from
other hymns, that employed simplicity and repetition such as:

Simultaneously, an unrelated movement of communal singing was
established throughout the South and Western states. A format of
teaching music to illiterate people appeared in 1800. It used four
syllables to distinguish the intervals of the major scale:
fa-sol-la-fa-sol-la-mi-fa. Each syllable was associated with a
specifically shaped note, and thus the use of books printed in this
format became known as shape note singing. The method was simple to
learn and teach, and schools were established throughout the South and
West. Communities would come together for an entire day of singing in
a large building where they sat in four distinct areas surrounding an
open space, one member directing the entire gathering. Some groups
sang outdoors, on benches set up in a square. Preachers used shape
note music to teach hymns to people on the frontier and to raise the
emotion of camp meetings. Most of the music was Christian, but the
purpose of communal singing was not primarily spiritual. Communities
either could not afford instruments for accompaniment, or rejected
their use due to a Calvinistic sense of simplicity, so the songs were
sung a cappella.

"New Britain" tune
====================
When originally used in Olney, it is unknown what music, if any,
accompanied the verses written by John Newton. Contemporary hymnbooks
did not contain music and were simply small books of religious poetry.
The first known instance of Newton's lines joined to music was in 'A
Companion to the Countess of Huntingdon's Hymns' (London, 1808), where
it is set to the tune "Hephzibah" by English composer John Jenkins
Husband. Common meter hymns were interchangeable with a variety of
tunes; more than twenty musical settings of "Amazing Grace" circulated
with varying popularity until 1835, when American composer William
Walker assigned Newton's words to a traditional song named "New
Britain". This was an amalgamation of two melodies ("Gallaher" and
"St. Mary"), first published in the 'Columbian Harmony' by Charles H.
Spilman and Benjamin Shaw (Cincinnati, 1829). Spilman and Shaw, both
students at Kentucky's Centre College, compiled their tunebook both
for public worship and revivals, to satisfy "the wants of the Church
in her triumphal march". Most of the tunes had been previously
published, but "Gallaher" and "St. Mary" had not. As neither tune is
attributed and both show elements of oral transmission, scholars can
only speculate that they are possibly of British origin. A manuscript
from 1828 by Lucius Chapin, a famous hymn writer of that time,
contains a tune very close to "St. Mary", but that does not mean that
he wrote it.

"Amazing Grace", with the words written by Newton and joined with "New
Britain", the melody most currently associated with it, appeared for
the first time in Walker's shape note tunebook 'Southern Harmony' in
1847. It was, according to author Steve Turner, a "marriage made in
heaven ... The music behind 'amazing' had a sense of awe to it. The
music behind 'grace' sounded graceful. There was a rise at the point
of confession, as though the author was stepping out into the open and
making a bold declaration, but a corresponding fall when admitting his
blindness." Walker's collection was enormously popular, selling about
600,000 copies all over the US when the total population was just over
20 million. Another shape note tunebook named 'The Sacred Harp' (1844)
by Georgia residents Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King became
widely influential and continues to be used.

Another verse was first recorded in Harriet Beecher Stowe's immensely
influential 1852 anti-slavery novel 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'. Three verses
were emblematically sung by Tom in his hour of deepest crisis. He
sings the sixth and fifth verses in that order, and Stowe included
another verse, not written by Newton, that had been passed down orally
in African-American communities for at least 50 years. It was one of
between 50 and 70 verses of a song titled "Jerusalem, My Happy Home",
which was first published in a 1790 book called 'A Collection of
Sacred Ballads':

"Amazing Grace" came to be an emblem of a Christian movement and a
symbol of the US itself as the country was involved in a great
political experiment, attempting to employ democracy as a means of
government. Shape-note singing communities, with all the members
sitting around an open center, each song employing a different song
leader, illustrated this in practice. Simultaneously, the US began to
expand westward into previously unexplored territory that was often
wilderness. The "dangers, toils, and snares" of Newton's lyrics had
both literal and figurative meanings for Americans. This became
poignantly true during the most serious test of American cohesion in
the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865). "Amazing Grace", set to "New Britain",
was included in two hymnals distributed to soldiers. With death so
real and imminent, religious services in the military became
commonplace. The hymn was translated into other languages as well:
while on the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee sang Christian hymns as a
way of coping with the ongoing tragedy, and a version of the song by
Samuel Worcester that had been translated into the Cherokee language
became very popular.

Urban revival
===============
Although "Amazing Grace" set to "New Britain" was popular, other
versions existed regionally. Primitive Baptists in the Appalachian
region often used "New Britain" with other hymns, and sometimes sing
the words of "Amazing Grace" to other folk songs, including titles
such as "In the Pines", "Pisgah", "Primrose", and "Evan", as all are
able to be sung in common meter, of which the majority of their
repertoire consists. In the late 19th century, Newton's verses were
sung to a tune named "Arlington" as frequently as to "New Britain" for
a time.

Two musical arrangers named Dwight Moody and Ira Sankey heralded
another religious revival in the cities of the US and Europe, giving
the song international exposure. Moody's preaching and Sankey's
musical gifts were significant; their arrangements were the
forerunners of gospel music, and churches all over the US were eager
to acquire them. Moody and Sankey began publishing their compositions
in 1875, and "Amazing Grace" appeared three times with three different
melodies, but they were the first to give it its title; hymns were
typically published using the incipits (first line of the lyrics), or
the name of the tune such as "New Britain". Publisher Edwin Othello
Excell gave the version of "Amazing Grace" set to "New Britain"
immense popularity by publishing it in a series of hymnals that were
used in urban churches. Excell altered some of Walker's music, making
it more contemporary and European, giving "New Britain" some distance
from its rural folk-music origins. Excell's version was more palatable
for a growing urban middle class and arranged for larger church
choirs. Several editions featuring Newton's first three stanzas and
the verse previously included by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 'Uncle Tom's
Cabin' were published by Excell between 1900 and 1910. His version of
"Amazing Grace" became the standard form of the song in American
churches.

Recorded versions
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With the advent of recorded music and radio, "Amazing Grace" began to
cross over from primarily a gospel standard to secular audiences. The
ability to record combined with the marketing of records to specific
audiences allowed "Amazing Grace" to take on thousands of different
forms in the 20th century. Where Edwin Othello Excell sought to make
the singing of "Amazing Grace" uniform throughout thousands of
churches, records allowed artists to improvise with the words and
music specific to each audience. AllMusic lists over 1,000 recordings
- including re-releases and compilations - as of 2019.

Its first recording is an a cappella version from 1922 by the Sacred
Harp Choir.
It was included from 1926 to 1930 in Okeh Records' catalogue, which
typically concentrated strongly on blues and jazz. Demand was high for
black gospel recordings of the song by H. R. Tomlin and J. M. Gates. A
poignant sense of nostalgia accompanied the recordings of several
gospel and blues singers in the 1940s and 1950s who used the song to
remember their grandparents, traditions, and family roots. It was
recorded with musical accompaniment for the first time in 1930 by
Fiddlin' John Carson, although to another folk hymn named "At the
Cross", not to "New Britain". "Amazing Grace" is emblematic of several
kinds of folk music styles, often used as the standard example to
illustrate such musical techniques as lining out and call and
response, that have been practised in both black and white folk music.

Mahalia Jackson's 1947 version received significant radio airplay, and
as her popularity grew throughout the 1950s and 1960s, she often sang
it at public events such as concerts at Carnegie Hall. Author James
Basker states that the song has been employed by African Americans as
the "paradigmatic Negro spiritual" because it expresses the joy felt
at being delivered from slavery and worldly miseries. Anthony Heilbut,
author of 'The Gospel Sound', states that the "dangers, toils, and
snares" of Newton's words are a "universal testimony" of the African
American experience.

During the civil rights movement and opposition to the Vietnam War,
the song took on a political tone. Mahalia Jackson employed "Amazing
Grace" for Civil Rights marchers, writing that she used it "to give
magical protection a charm to ward off danger, an incantation to the
angels of heaven to descend ... I was not sure the magic worked
outside the church walls ... in the open air of Mississippi. But I
wasn't taking any chances." Folk singer Judy Collins, who knew the
song before she could remember learning it, witnessed Fannie Lou Hamer
leading marchers in Mississippi in 1964, singing "Amazing Grace".
Collins also considered it a talisman of sorts, and saw its equal
emotional impact on the marchers, witnesses, and law enforcement who
opposed the civil rights demonstrators. According to fellow folk
singer Joan Baez, it was one of the most requested songs from her
audiences, but she never realised its origin as a hymn; by the time
she was singing it in the 1960s she said it had "developed a life of
its own". It even made an appearance at the Woodstock Music Festival
in 1969 during Arlo Guthrie's performance.

Collins decided to record it in the late 1960s amid an atmosphere of
counterculture introspection; she was part of an encounter group that
ended a contentious meeting by singing "Amazing Grace" as it was the
only song to which all the members knew the words. Her producer was
present and suggested she include a version of it on her 1970 album
'Whales & Nightingales'. Collins, who had a history of alcohol
abuse, claimed that the song was able to "pull her through" to
recovery. It was recorded in St. Paul's, the chapel at Columbia
University, chosen for the acoustics. She chose an 'a cappella'
arrangement that was close to Edwin Othello Excell's, accompanied by a
chorus of amateur singers who were friends of hers. Collins connected
it to the Vietnam War, to which she objected: "I didn't know what else
to do about the war in Vietnam. I had marched, I had voted, I had gone
to jail on political actions and worked for the candidates I believed
in. The war was still raging. There was nothing left to do, I thought
... but sing 'Amazing Grace'." Gradually and unexpectedly, the song
began to be played on the radio, and then be requested. It rose to
number 15 on the 'Billboard' Hot 100, remaining on the charts for 15
weeks, as if, she wrote, her fans had been "waiting to embrace it". In
the UK, it charted 8 times between 1970 and 1972, peaking at number 5
and spending a total of 75 weeks on popular music charts. Her
rendition also reached number 5 in New Zealand and number 12 in
Ireland in 1971.

In 1972, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, the senior Scottish regiment
of the British Army, recorded an instrumental version featuring a
bagpipe soloist accompanied by a pipe band. The tempo of their
arrangement was slowed to allow for the bagpipes, but it was based on
Collins's: it began with a bagpipe solo introduction similar to her
lone voice, then it was accompanied by the band of bagpipes and horns,
whereas in her version she is backed up by a chorus. It became an
international hit, spending five weeks at number-one in the UK Singles
Chart, topping the 'RPM' national singles chart in Canada for three
weeks, and also peaking at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the
US. It is also a controversial instrumental, as it combined pipes with
a military band. The Pipe Major of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards was
summoned to Edinburgh Castle and chastised for demeaning the bagpipes.

Aretha Franklin and Rod Stewart also recorded "Amazing Grace" around
the same time, and both of their renditions were popular. All four
versions were marketed to distinct types of audiences, thereby
assuring its place as a pop song. Johnny Cash recorded it on his 1975
album 'Sings Precious Memories', dedicating it to his older brother
Jack, who had been killed in a mill accident when they were boys in
Dyess, Arkansas. Cash and his family sang it to themselves while they
worked in the cotton fields following Jack's death. Cash often
included the song when he toured prisons, saying "For the three
minutes that song is going on, everybody is free. It just frees the
spirit and frees the person."

The U.S. Library of Congress has a collection of 3,000 versions of and
songs inspired by "Amazing Grace", some of which were first-time
recordings by folklorists Alan and John Lomax, a father and son team
who in 1932 travelled thousands of miles across the southern states of
the US to capture the different regional styles of the song. More
contemporary renditions include samples from such popular artists as
Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers (1963), the Byrds (1970), Elvis
Presley (1971), Skeeter Davis (1972), Mighty Clouds of Joy (1972),
Amazing Rhythm Aces (1975), Willie Nelson (1976) and the Lemonheads
(1992).

In American popular culture
======================================================================
"Amazing Grace" is an icon in American culture that has been used for
a variety of secular purposes and marketing campaigns. It is
referenced in the 2006 film 'Amazing Grace', which highlights Newton's
influence on the leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce, in
the film biography of Newton, 'Newton's Grace', and the 2014 film
'Freedom' which tells the story of Newton's composition of the hymn.

Since 1954, when an organ instrumental of "New Britain" became a
best-seller, "Amazing Grace" has been associated with funerals and
memorial services. The hymn has become a song that inspires hope in
the wake of tragedy, becoming a sort of "spiritual national anthem"
according to authors Mary Rourke and Emily Gwathmey. For example,
President Barack Obama recited and later sang the hymn at the memorial
service for Clementa Pinckney, who was one of the nine victims of the
Charleston church shooting in 2015.

Modern interpretations
======================================================================
In recent years, the words of the hymn have been changed in some
religious publications to downplay a sense of imposed self-loathing by
its singers. The second line, "That saved a wretch like me!" has been
rewritten as "That saved and strengthened me", "save a soul like me",
or "that saved and set me free". Kathleen Norris in her book 'Amazing
Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith' characterises this transformation of the
original words as "wretched English" making the line that replaces the
original "laughably bland". Part of the reason for this change has
been the altered interpretations of what wretchedness and grace means.
Newton's Calvinistic view of redemption and divine grace formed his
perspective that he considered himself a sinner so vile that he was
unable to change his life or be redeemed without God's help. Yet his
lyrical subtlety, in Steve Turner's opinion, leaves the hymn's meaning
open to a variety of Christian and non-Christian interpretations.
"Wretch" also represents a period in Newton's life when he saw himself
outcast and miserable, as he was when he was enslaved in Sierra Leone;
his own arrogance was matched by how far he had fallen in his life.

Due to its immense popularity and iconic nature, the meaning behind
the words of "Amazing Grace" has become as individual as the singer or
listener. Bruce Hindmarsh suggests that the secular popularity of
"Amazing Grace" is due to the absence of any mention of God in the
lyrics until the fourth verse (by Excell's version, the fourth verse
begins "When we've been there ten thousand years"), and that the song
represents the ability of humanity to transform itself instead of a
transformation taking place at the hands of God. "Grace", however, had
a clearer meaning to John Newton, as he used the word to represent God
or the power of God.

The transformative power of the song was investigated by journalist
Bill Moyers in a documentary released in 1990. Moyers was inspired to
focus on the song's power after watching a performance at Lincoln
Center, where the audience consisted of Christians and non-Christians,
and he noticed that it had an equal impact on everybody in attendance,
unifying them. James Basker also acknowledged this force when he
explained why he chose "Amazing Grace" to represent a collection of
anti-slavery poetry: "there is a transformative power that is
applicable ... : the transformation of sin and sorrow into grace, of
suffering into beauty, of alienation into empathy and connection, of
the unspeakable into imaginative literature."

Moyers interviewed Collins, Cash, opera singer Jessye Norman,
Appalachian folk musician Jean Ritchie and her family, white Sacred
Harp singers in Georgia, black Sacred Harp singers in Alabama, and a
prison choir at the Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville. Collins,
Cash, and Norman were unable to discern if the power of the song came
from the music or the lyrics. Norman, who once notably sang it at the
end of a large outdoor rock concert for Nelson Mandela's 70th
birthday, stated, "I don't know whether it's the text I don't know
whether we're talking about the lyrics when we say that it touches so
many people or whether it's that tune that everybody knows." A
prisoner interviewed by Moyers explained his literal interpretation of
the second verse: "'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace
my fears relieved" by saying that the fear became immediately real to
him when he realised he may never get his life in order, compounded by
the loneliness and restriction in prison. Gospel singer Marion
Williams summed up its effect: "That's a song that gets to everybody".

The 'Dictionary of American Hymnology' claims it is included in more
than a thousand published hymnals, and recommends its use for
"occasions of worship when we need to confess with joy that we are
saved by God's grace alone; as a hymn of response to forgiveness of
sin or as an assurance of pardon; as a confession of faith or after
the sermon".

% Adding least one space before each line is recommended
{ \language "english" % Songs have the format {lots of
stuff}
\new PianoStaff << \new Staff \relative c'
{ \set Staff.midiInstrument = #"violin" \clef treble \key g
\major \tempo 8 = 126 \time 3/4
% --------------------Start "violin" part
r4 r4 d,4 % 1
g2 b8( g8) % 2
b2 a4 % 3
g2 e4 % 4
d2 d4 % 5
g2 b8( g8) % 6
b2 a4 % 7
d2 b4 % 8
d4.( b8) d8( b8) % 9
g2 d4 % 10
e4.( g8 ) g8( e8)% 11
d2 d4 % 12
g2 b8( g8) % 13
b2 a4 % 14
g2. \bar ":|." % 15
} % -------------------end "violin" part
\addlyrics
{A -- ma -- zing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like
me!
I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. A --
men.}
\new Staff \relative c {
\set Staff.midiInstrument = #"violin" \clef bass \key g \major \time
3/4
r4 r4 % 1 A
2 8 8 % 2 mazing
2 4 % 3 grace h ow
2 4 % 4 sweet the
2 4 % 5 sound that
2 8 8 % 6 saved a
2 4 % 7 wretch like
2 4 % 8 me I
2 4 % 9 once was
2 4 % 10 lost but
2 8 8 % 11 now am
2 4 % 12 found, was
2 4 % 13 blind, but
2 4 % 14 now I
2. % 15 see
} >> }

Sources
=========
* Aitken, Jonathan (2007). 'John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing
Grace', Crossway Books.
* Basker, James (2002). 'Amazing Grace: An Anthology of Poems About
Slavery, 1660-1810', Yale University Press.
* Benson, Louis (1915). 'The English Hymn: Its Development and Use in
Worship', The Presbyterian Board of Publication, Philadelphia.
* Bradley, Ian (ed.)(1989). 'The Book of Hymns', The Overlook Press.
* Brown, Tony; Kutner, Jon; Warwick, Neil (2000). 'Complete Book of
the British Charts: Singles & Albums', Omnibus.
* Bruner, Kurt; Ware, Jim (2007). 'Finding God in the Story of Amazing
Grace', Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
* Chase, Gilbert (1987). 'America's Music, From the Pilgrims to the
Present', McGraw-Hill.
* Collins, Judy (1998). 'Singing Lessons: A Memoir of Love, Loss,
Hope, and Healing ', Pocket Books.
* Duvall, Deborah (2000). 'Tahlequah and the Cherokee Nation', Arcadia
Publishing.
* Julian, John (ed.)(1892). 'A Dictionary of Hymnology', Charles
Scribner's Sons, New York.
* Martin, Bernard (1950). 'John Newton: A Biography', William
Heineman, Ltd., London.
* Martin, Bernard and Spurrell, Mark, (eds.)(1962). 'The Journal of a
Slave Trader (John Newton)', The Epworth Press, London.
* Newton, John (1811). 'Thoughts Upon the African Slave Trade', Samuel
Whiting and Co., London.
* Newton, John (1824). 'The Works of the Rev. John Newton Late Rector
of the United Parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch
Haw, London: Volume 1', Nathan Whiting, London.
* Noll, Mark A.; Blumhofer, Edith L. (eds.) (2006). 'Sing Them Over
Again to Me: Hymns and Hymnbooks in America', University of Alabama
Press.
* Norris, Kathleen (1999). 'Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith',
Riverhead.
* Patterson, Beverly Bush (1995). 'The Sound of the Dove: Singing in
Appalachian Primitive Baptist Churches', University of Illinois Press.
* Porter, Jennifer; McLaren, Darcee (eds.)(1999). 'Star Trek and
Sacred Ground: Explorations of Star Trek, Religion, and American
Culture', State University of New York Press,
* Rourke, Mary; Gwathmey, Emily (1996). 'Amazing Grace in America: Our
Spiritual National Anthem', Angel City Press.
* Stowe, Harriet Beecher (1899). 'Uncle Tom's Cabin, or Life Among the
Lowly', R. F. Fenno & Company, New York City.
* Swiderski, Richard (1996). 'The Metamorphosis of English: Versions
of Other Languages', Greenwood Publishing Group.
* Turner, Steve (2002). 'Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most
Beloved Song', HarperCollins.
* Watson, J. R. (ed.)(2002). 'An Annotated Anthology of Hymns', Oxford
University Press.
* Whitburn, Joel (2003). 'Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles, 1955-2002',
Record Research, Inc.

External links
======================================================================
* [http://www.hymnary.org/text/amazing_grace_how_sweet_the_sound
Amazing Grace] at Hymnary.org
*
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150419181334/http://www.estudobiblico.org/en/biblical-comment/873-the-amazing-grace
The Amazing Grace]
* [http://memory.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/grace/grace-home.html U.S.
Library of Congress Amazing Grace collection]
* [http://www.cowperandnewtonmuseum.org.uk Cowper & Newton Museum]
in Olney, England
* [http://www.markrhoads.com/amazingsite/index.htm Amazing Grace: Some
Early Tunes Anthology of the American Hymn-Tune Repertory]
* [http://www.amazinggrace.ie Amazing Grace: The story behind the song
and its connection to Lough Swilly]

Further reading
======================================================================
Walvin, James. 'Amazing Grace: A Cultural History of the Beloved
Hymn.' Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2023.

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=========
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