Which song-book was used, when you got baptized ? ;-)

[John Houston]

The green and yellow one.

[JW Insider]

The green-and-yellow was still being used up until the year before I got baptized. This meant that each hall still had a piano and a couple of sisters who could play the songs, because there was no record set for the green-and-yellow. Some of the old pre-1966 songs still stick in my head like:

• Rejoice! The Kingdom Has Begun,
• Dedication,
• Hosannas for David's Son,
• Ministers for the Issue,
• Christ is Here!,
• Tell It Out!, etc.
• The older, more, complex version of "Forward! You Witnesses!"

Also, there were completely different words for some of the songs we sang, like: "The Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon" (71) which was much more fun to sing in the old rhyme.

• There's a call going out through the length of the land / To serve in the army of Gideon;
• For our captain has issued the final command / To vanquish the cohorts of Midian.

In the pink songbook (Preach This Good News of the Kingdom!, 103), this changed to:

• This good news of the Kingdom must now be proclaimed / In witness to each land and nation;
• And Jehovah's good name must become widely famed / Before his complete vindication.

Also we were allowed to harmonize, like in a choir, on several songs: To the Work! 79 Send out Your Light! 65, Take Sides With Jehovah! 57 (also in pink, etc), 23, 53, etc.

The most forgettable song in the pre-1966 was "The Taunt-Song Against Satan." (75) What a title!

 

[TrueTomHarley]

12 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

This meant that each hall still had a piano and a couple of sisters who could play the songs, because there was no record set for the green-and-yellow

At my baptism, the brothers sang "You Ain't Nothin But a Hound Dog." What a nasty bunch they were there. 

But, seriously - at a congregation out in the hills, a duo playing piano and viola accompanied all songs. Such beautiful music you have never heard.

[Judy Stone Faigle]

2 hours ago, JW Insider said:

The green-and-yellow was still being used up until the year before I got baptized. This meant that each hall still had a piano and a couple of sisters who could play the songs, because there was no record set for the green-and-yellow. Some of the old pre-1966 songs still stick in my head like:

• Rejoice! The Kingdom Has Begun,
• Dedication,
• Hosannas for David's Son,
• Ministers for the Issue,
• Christ is Here!,
• Tell It Out!, etc.
• The older, more, complex version of "Forward! You Witnesses!"

Also, there were completely different words for some of the songs we sang, like: "The Sword of Jehovah and of Gideon" (71) which was much more fun to sing in the old rhyme.

• There's a call going out through the length of the land / To serve in the army of Gideon;
• For our captain has issued the final command / To vanquish the cohorts of Midian.

In the pink songbook (Preach This Good News of the Kingdom!, 103), this changed to:

• This good news of the Kingdom must now be proclaimed / In witness to each land and nation;
• And Jehovah's good name must become widely famed / Before his complete vindication.

Also we were allowed to harmonize, like in a choir, on several songs: To the Work! 79 Send out Your Light! 65, Take Sides With Jehovah! 57 (also in pink, etc), 23, 53, etc.

The most forgettable song in the pre-1966 was "The Taunt-Song Against Satan." (75) What a title!

 

What a beautiful memory, you have. I always loved the orchestra  music we had at assemblies...the brother that was the conductor went to our hall. Watching him made me love music as Jehovah does. 

[JW Insider]

1 hour ago, Judy Stone Faigle said:

What a beautiful memory, you have. I always loved the orchestra  music we had at assemblies...the brother that was the conductor went to our hall. Watching him made me love music as Jehovah does. 

I played in one of the orchestras that played for U.S. Midwest assemblies in Illinois and Missouri. The brother who conducted was really good.  He produced some excellent arrangements in a lot of different styles. That's probably the main reason I remember many of the older songs that we haven't sung in half-a-century. Wow! It's really been that long!

[JW Insider]

3 hours ago, TrueTomHarley said:

But, seriously - at a congregation out in the hills, a duo playing piano and viola accompanied all songs. Such beautiful music you have never heard.

That would have been quite a thing to hear. I remember once when the record player broke and brothers insisted that I play the piano, because I played guitar in the district convention orchestra (which was mostly violins and violas, btw). They had heard me "plink" on the piano a couple times. I insisted that I didn't play but they were sure. After an embarrassing false start, I ended up just playing the chords without the melody. (We didn't have chords printed in the songbook back then, but I had them scribbled into my copy.)

[Judy Stone Faigle]

15 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

I played in one of the orchestras that played for U.S. Midwest assemblies in Illinois and Missouri. The brother who conducted was really good.  He produced some excellent arrangements in a lot of different styles. That's probably the main reason I remember many of the older songs that we haven't sung in half-a-century. Wow! It's really been that long!

I live in Missouri &  I'm thinking his name was Wayne but I could be mistaken..my mind isn't as sharp as it used to be..or will be.

[JW Insider]

7 minutes ago, Judy Stone Faigle said:

I live in Missouri &  I'm thinking his name was Wayne but I could be mistaken..my mind isn't as sharp as it used to be..or will be.

WOW! I think that's it. You must have gone to assemblies around St. Louis, and sometimes he conducted in Springfield (Illinois) at the racetrack? Some of the same orchestra also played at assemblies in Kansas City, where I played a couple times. I believe his congregation was fairly close to Brother Calvin Lanich, who played harmonica for a famous old group called the Harmonicats. (Several albums on Spotify.) One of the arrangements required a harmonica for a western theme, and Brother Lanich taught me how to play it because he didn't have time to travel with the orchestra.

[Anna]

For me it was the brown one

[Queen Esther]

For me too Anna.  Some years the brown one and then the next,  Singing to Jehovah ! Wish you a nice weekend...  Greetings from Germany