Analyze a Religious Song - Essay Example

Rogers was right when he observed that the song contained so much of the personal experiences of the composer himself; for him, John Newton himself was “the self-proclaimed wretch who once was lost but then was found, saved by amazing grace” (Rogers). Many who love the song do so for its melodious tone even though the origin of the melody is unknown. However, it is commonly agreed that the song resembles ancient American folk melodies sung by the slaves. ‘Amazing Grace’ can be regarded as one of the finest hymns of the time.

Hymns are religious songs that praise, adore and offer prayers to any deity or deities. As such, one can notice that the whole song is a Hymn praying God to shower His grace and blessings on the blind humans and to lead man safely. The song can be best understood as an invocation by a devotee who confesses his sins and believes in God’s unending mercy. It was God’s grace that led the devotee through “many dangers, toils and snares” and it is the same grace of God that offers him hope now.

Similarly, he believes that God’s grace can relieve him from all sorts of fears and he trusts in God’s promise. . The song is usually sung in chorus with instrumental accompaniment and the melody of the song touches the heart of the listener. In fact, the song can be categorized as a Canata. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Canata as “a composition for one or more voices usually comprising solos, duets, recitatives, and choruses and sung to an instrumental accompaniment” (Cantata-Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary).

‘Amazing Grace’ also is sung in different voices and in various parts of the world the song is rendered with solos and choruses and as recitatives. Similarly, the rhyming words (end rhymes) such as me-see, sound-found, fear-appear, relieved-believed etc add to the beauty of the song and makes it heartfelt to the hearer as well as the singer. Similarly, a close analysis of the song convinces one that it has strophic song form. A strophic song is conceived as “a type of song that has the same melody (tune) but different lyrics (words) for each stanza (strophe)” (Estrella).

One can very well see that each of the stanzas in the poem maintain the same tone even though the lyrics vary from one strophe to another. Certain strophic songs do have a refrain that is repeated at the end of each verse. Similarly, there are many today who use the first strophe of the song after each of the other stanzas. Very often, strophic forms are widely being employed for carols, hymns and folk songs and the ‘Amazing Grace’ has the qualities of all the three. These strophic characteristics of ‘Amazing Grace’ have also led to the popular appeal for the song.

It is also worthwhile to compare ‘Amazing Grace’ with other similar religious songs. There have been a number of popular religious songs such as “From First Mass for