thanks for this good morning

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Single by the Botho Lucas Choir

Thank you for this good morning (original title: Thank you ) is a hymn by Martin Gotthard Schneider . It is one of the oldest and most famous examples of the New Spiritual Song genre . In the Protestant hymn book it has the song number EG 334. In some editions of God's praise it appears in the diocese appendix , eg GL (Bamberg) 829. The song rights are held by Gustav-Bosse-Verlag .

history

The song was composed by Schneider in 1961 for the Protestant Academy Tutzing's competition for new sacred songs, in which the melodies were to be written in the style of jazz or popular music . Schneider won 1st prize in the competition. Günter Hegele, the competition for the managers, managed through its contacts with Heinz Gietz , the Electrola convincing in Cologne from producing the song. The song was recorded in an arrangement by Werner Last (with spinet and organ) and sung by the Botho Lucas Choir and initially pressed in a small edition. Contrary to the estimates of the producers, the song was able to place itself in the German single charts for a month and a half in 1963 . Schneider later rewrote the song as a thank you for this evening hour .

content

Thank you for this good morning consists of six stanzas. Each contains three expressions of thanks, each structured according to the form "Thank you for / that ..." and lined up one after the other. The singer thanks God for the interpersonal things, the given living conditions and the characteristics of God. Finally, in the sixth stanza, the word “Thank you” is only put in front; The singer makes it clear that he is keeping to God's word, which knows no barriers, and ultimately thanks him for the ability to thank.

reception

At first the song was very controversial in circles of the Evangelical Church. The use of the song was compared with a camp pastor "who does not give a sermon on the beach, but [...] distributes inflated rubber swimming animals with the inscription 'Jesus lives'". The church newspapers were also critical. The mass media took up this dispute. The song was a sin against music and against the church, it was said at the time . The WDR mocked Thank you in its own TV report: “Thank you for the little Helle” while showing a beer glass at the same time; while the line "Thank you, your salvation knows no barriers" was sung, a tired man climbed over the railway barriers onto the rails. The storm of protest in the media contributed to the fact that the song became increasingly popular.

Due to the success of Danke , the Tutzing Academy organized a second competition in 1962. Independently of this, the big record companies in Germany released pious hits to follow up on the success of the song: The Fellows sang Time comes again , John Paris One knows everything , Lys Assia God's children don't need shoes and Knut Kiesewetter Germanized spirituals.

At the German Evangelical Church Congress in Dortmund in 1963, pop star Ralf Bendix sang Thank you in front of an audience of 16,000. The song was particularly popular in the 1960s: sales of the single rose to 700,000 pieces. The song was often played on radio stations and interpreted by many other choirs. The song was later included in the Evangelical Hymnbook and translated into more than 25 languages. There are also cover versions in professions that are far removed from church music, including Toxoplasma , Die Ärzte , Normahl and Mickie Krause .

Translations

The Danish pastor Ingrid Schrøder-Hansen (* 1943) published a six-stanzan translation of “Tak, Gud, for denne lyse morgen ...” in six stanzas and appeared (without melody, but with reference to MG Schneider) in the appendix to the Danish hymnal Tillæg til Den Danske Salme Bog , Copenhagen 1994, no.901 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lorenz Jäger : "Thank you" as a hymn . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, April 1, 2015, p. N3.
  2. ↑ a b c Daniel Scheufler: On the development of popular sacred music in Germany between 1980 and 2000. ( Memento from January 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Thesis submitted and defended at the "Carl Maria von Weber" University of Music in Dresden, submitted on September 30, 2007 (PDF file, 10.8 MB) p. 37 f.
  3. ↑ Thank you for this evening lesson in the Christian song database
  4. ↑ a b Kiesewetter's Hallelujah . In: Der Spiegel . No. 12 , 1964, pp. 122-124 ( online ).
  5. ↑ a b c d A religious pop song celebrates its birthday Deutschlandradio Kultur May 5, 2012
  6. ↑ Thanks to coverinfo.de
  7. ↑ Cf. Otto Holzapfel : Lied index: The older German-language popular song tradition ( online version on the Volksmusikarchiv homepage of the Upper Bavaria district ; in PDF format; ongoing updates) with further information.