"Amazing Grace:
The Story Behind the Hymn"
With Steve Turner
Author, "Amazing Grace: The Story of America's Most Beloved Song"
Friday, Dec. 6, 2002; Noon ET

The song "Amazing Grace" was written in Olney, England by former slave trader John Newton in 1772. It made its way across the Atlantic to South Carolina, where the lyrics were published for the first time with a melody.

Through the nineteenth century the Protestant religious song appeared in more and more hymnals and in the twentieth century it rose to become a gospel and folk standard. Judy Collins' recording in 1970 introduced it to the massive pop music market and it climbed up the charts. More than 450 recordings made after 1970 are held in the Library of Congress and represent such diverse artists as Elvis Presley, Rod Stewart, Tiny Tim, Johnny Cash, Chet Baker and Destiny's Child.

Author Steve Turner will be online Friday, Dec. 6 at Noon, to trace the history of the universally popular song.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Alexandria, Va.: Yesterday I heard an interview with you in which you said that U2's Bono identified Amazing Grace as a Protestant song. Do you see it as being particularly Protestant? Certainly now almost all Christian denominations sing this hymn. Has this been the case since it was first sung?

Steve Turner: I think that it is a Protestant song inasmuch as the writer, John Newton, was a Protestant and it emphasizes the concept of grace in a Protestant rather than Catholic sense. In fact, it was only fairly recently admitted into Roman Catholic hymnals and I know that some of them have changed the use of the word 'wretch' to read 'soul' so that it says 'Saved a soul like me'.

Mt. Lebanon - Pa.: What a horrible song. Why is it so popular and why is it sung at the most inappropriate places -- like the funerals of children? Certainly no child has the blackened bastardly past of slavery on his soul. Thanks much.

Steve Turner: Interestingly, John Newton wrote the song a long time before his conversion to the cause of abolition. He was actually a Christian when he began captaining slave ships and saw no inconsistency in that. It was in the 1780s that he came to see the horror of slavery. I think it's popular for may different reasons but perhaps one of the most important is because it is a song about the possibility of transformation and this something that many people hope for.

Washington, D.C.: How many contemporary artists have recorded "Amazing Grace?"

Steve Turner: It's hard to say how many versions of Amazing Grace have been recorded but my research led me to conclude that at least a thousand recordings must have been made. I include a selected discography in the book and it's clear that the growth in recordings began with the Judy Collins version in 1970.

Laurel, Md.: How usual would it have been for a former slave trader to think of himself as a wretch who earned his money wrongly?

Are there many writings (diaries, etc.) in which they express their remorse at having made a fortune that way? Or did they see it as not much different from any other form of foreign trade?

Steve Turner: I didn't come across many people who were personally involved in the trade who later came to see it as evil but Newton did actually write an anti slavery tract in the 1880s and lent his weight to the campaign. However, it's important to note that as far as we know he wasn't an abolitionist at the time he wrote Amazing Grace. When he became a Christian he thought that the main change in his life would be that he would treat the slaves more humanely but it didn't see anything inherently wrong with the trade itself.

Arlington, Va.: Some time ago, I read a quote from an African-American activist, accusing white people of ripping "Amazing Grace" off from the Africans. At the time, I dismissed this out of hand, but now that I know the writer was a slave trader, I wonder. Is there any truth to this?

Steve Turner: The point to remember is that although John Newton wrote the words in December 1772 he did not write the music that we now sing those words to. The tune was matched to the words in an 1835 shape note tune book Southern Harmony but was already in existence at the time. The earliest record of it is in an 1829 tune book, the Columbian harmony. Where it came from and who composed it, we don't know. What tune Newton would have had people sing it to we can't tell. It was written in what was called 'common metre' which means that it would have fitted any number of available tunes and it was sung to a number of tunes until the early 20th century when the tune we now sing it to beat off all opposition.

Washington, D.C.: Do you happen to know if the words of the song we know are faithful to the original American version and, further, to the English version?

Steve Turner: What people now tend to sing are the first three stanzas that Newton wrote plus the '10,000 years' stanza which came from a much older hymn and was first attached in a hymnal in 1909. Newton wrote six stanzas, three of which are rarely sung today.

Washington, D.C.: Did Judy Collins herself write a book about Amazing Grace?

Steve Turner: Yes. Judy did a book with a brief text and a lot of illustrations. She also did the foreword to my book!

Adelphi, Md.: Does anybody make any money off the song now or is it in the public domain?

Steve Turner: It is in the public domain but what happens is that people get a credit for 'arranging' it and therefore pick up royalties that way.

Falls Church, Va.: Does any particular religion claim the song?

Steve Turner: Do you mean denomination rather than religion. It is obviously claimed as a Christian song because the writer was Christian and it expresses Christian doctrine. Newton was a minister in the Church of England at the time but it never made it's mark in the Church of England being absent from most C of E hymnals until after the Judy Collins hit. Similarly, the Episcopalian church didn't pick it up until post-Collins. I guess that the denominations that have done the most to spread it are the Baptists and Methodists although the first American hymnal to feature it was Dutch Reformed (in the 18th century).

Arlington, Va.: Is the melody original to the Carolinas version of the song. I mean, was it borrowed from another song?

Steve Turner: It did come from another source and we don't know who wrote it. I tracked down the diaries of the man, Charles Spilman, who first included the tune in a shape note tune book but he never said where it came from. A musical expert that I consulted felt that it contained many elements of tunes associated with Scotland and so could either have come from Scotland or have been composed in America by people ina community affected by music from Scotland. Spilman was from Kentucky and there were many Scottish immigrants there in the early 19th century.

Washington, D.C.: After the song (words) migrated to America and became a hymn, did it travel back overseas and is it done in England and other places in the world?

Steve Turner: It has had an international impact, initially because missionaries took it around the world but now because of radio and records. However, its growth as a song has been almost exclusively in America and I don't think that there is anywhere else where it has bee taken to heart in quite the same way.

Rosslyn, Va.: When did it start being used as a funeral song?

Steve Turner: A gospel organist called Maceo Woods recorded it in 1954 and his record company in Chicago hit on the idea of selling the idea of it as a tune to be played in chapels of rest because there was a convention of funeral directors in town at the time. The bagpipe version was recorded after the bandmaster of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards heard the Judy Collins version and thought it could be adapted to pipes. It had never ben recorded as a bagpipe tune before that (1972). It was only after thais that people like the firefighters, who had pipe bands, began using it for funerals.

Vienna, Va.: I've heard sermons on the song and wasn't it true that the song is a testimony to the writer who later became a minister?

Steve Turner: It was written by a former slave trader and captain of slave ships who did indeed become a Church of England minister in the small town of Olney in Bedfordshire.

Washington, D.C.: Amazing Grace, a horrible song? To me, it's one of the greatest there is. I will never forget attending the funeral of my uncle, who had been a bagpipe player. When the pipers started that tune at the end of the mass, everyone in the entire church collapsed in tears. I hope I die with that song on my lips.

Steve Turner: Thank you. I have noticed in America that many people have personal associations like this with the song and this is a further reason for its great success.

Annapolis, Md.: Thanks for taking my question.

Amazing grace has so many trappings of evangelical gospel. Sinfulness of man, inability of man to justify him/her self, God stooping to save. . . Why do you think that this is so popular in a culture that pretty much rejects all of this?

Thanks.

Steve Turner: Probably because people don't see that meaning! It is, as you say, profoundly theological but because it only uses the word 'God' once and doesn't use any of the words you used to describe it - 'sinfulness', 'justify' - it gets 'beneath people's radar'. Also, many people will interpret it according to their own belief system so that 'grace' can be sen as another word for 'good fortune' or 'The Force' or whatever.

Washington, D.C.: Who's done the best recorded version of the song?

Steve Turner: That is a question of taste. I like so many versions from the instrumental to vocal to versions that use other tunes. The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded a version last year to the tune of House of The Rising Sun. I think Aretha Franklin did a stand out version in 1972.

Harrisburg, Pa.: When did "Amazing Grace" begin to be sung at funerals? How did this idea then spread?

Steve Turner: I supplied the answer to this in another question. How exactly it caught on, I can't say. maybe because movies began to feature it in this context. If you hear the opening chords of Amazing Grace - you know a funeral is about to take place.

Fairfax, Va.: How would you characterize the song? What is its message?

Steve Turner: It is the personal testimony of John Newton who never got over the idea that he was a deeply sinful person that God cared enough about to rescue.Grace, in this context, literally means an 'undeserved favour' of God. Newton spent most of his early life not only running from God but trying to destroy the faith of Christians. That God bothered to chase after him and make him a leading advocate of the faith was a genuine cause of amazement to him.

Washington, D.C.: Please explain the journey of the song from England to America and then the spread of it in this country.

Steve Turner: It was published in England in 1779 (after being written in 1772) and gradually began to get picked up by other hymnals. In a nutshell, it's spread was in being picked up by more and more hymnals until the 1920s when it was also spread by records and radio.

Washington, D.C. : Wasn't the song also used during the civil rights era?

Steve Turner: Yes, it was sung on marches in the South and by performers such as Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, The Weavers and Judy Collins. It was a song that united people across the normal barriers of age, region, race and denomination.

Alexandria, Va.: Did you travel to England and other places for your research for the book?

Steve Turner: Big secret - I'm English and live in England! So, yes, I travelled to Olney to see the vicarage where he wrote the hymn and the church of which he was once minister.I also visited St Mary Woolnoth, where he was minister during the last two decades of his life in London, and to Wapping where he was born. My most significant visits though were to libraries - the British Library, Lambeth Palace Library (which has hand written sermon notes,, letters etc) and the Public Record Office which has the log books of the Royal Navy ship he served on. I also went to Sierra Leone and visited Plantain Island, the place where he started life as a slave trader and where he was kept as a virtual prisoner by the vindictive African mistress of his white employer.

Washington, D.C.: What's a shape note?

Steve Turner: The shape note system was a revolution in American music at the turn of the 19th century. Each musical note - fa, so, la, etc was represented by a shape as the notehaed - square, diamond etc. which meant that people could 'read' music very easily. Southern Harmony, in which Amazing Grace was first paired with the tune we now use, was one of the most popular. This was later overtaken in popularity by The Sacred Harp, which also included Amazing Grace to the same tune. Some people now refer to shape note singing as Sacred Harp singing, so popular has that book become.

Silver Spring, Md.: How does Amazing Grace rate against Rock of Ages in popularity?

Steve Turner: I think that Amazing Grace tends to top most polls but How Great Thou Art is up there!

Vienna, Va.: Who are some contemporary artists who like the song or perform it and what do they have to say about it?

Steve Turner: I think Destiny's Child is one of the most popular groups of late to record it. U2 sang it on stage last year as a tribute to Joey Ramone but have never recorded it.

Somewhere, USA: The song is translated into so many languages and is a common song among Christians around the world.

Any thoughts on this and do you think that meaning of the song gets lost in translation?

Steve Turner: I think the tune translates very well. I corresponded with a Buddhist monk (female) in Nepal who uses it and I gather that it's a popular flute tune in Mongolia! As I don't speak any other languages I wouldn't now how successful translations of the words have been.

Virginia: What was the original lyrics to the song?

Steve Turner: There are six stanzas to the original song, which are still in some hymnals.

Alexandria, Va.: Was John Newton a songwriter before he wrote Amazing Grace? And did he write it as a song or just a narrative that became a song with melody?

Steve Turner: Newton had ben writing hymns for a few years and in the venture that became Olney Hymns he was accompanied by the poet William Cowper. He wasn't a musician or a writer of music and I gather that the church in Olney had no organ at that time. I assume it would first have been sung without instruments to an already available hymn tune.

Pfafftown, N.C.: Mr. Turner:

Most hymnals show four verses to "Amazing Grace". James and Georgia Dearmore's Web site about John Newton's works show 12 verses. Their research attributes these additional verses to John Newton. Just like the familiar four, the other eight are just as beatiful and moving to sing. Does your research reveal all 12 as attributed to Mr. Newton?

Steve Turner: Newton didn't write twelve stanzas. Hymns began to acquire what they called 'wandering stanzas' - verses from other hymns which not only fitted the same metre but seem to amplify the same theme. The first time it was printed in an American hymnal Newton's words were sandwiched in the middle of a much longer hymn and no author was identified.

Steve Turner: That's it folks!!!