This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
Hosanna
Hosanna
Hosanna, Hosanna, Glory to God,
to Jesus, his only Son!
Hosanna, Hosanna, Glory to God,
to Jesus, the Holy One!
We will lift our hearts and we'll worship you,
we will lift our hands* and wave:
if we held back our shout
then the stones would cry out
for we know you are coming to save!
Hosanna, Hosanna ...
We will lift our voices to praise your name,
and proclaim you as our king.
You are "Lord", "Prince of Peace",
and you bring God's release,
so in freedom we're able to sing:
Hosanna, Hosanna ...
Words and music copyright © John Hartley 2007.
* "palms" instead of "hands" on Palm Sunday if the congregation have palm crosses or tree branches to wave.
Story behind the song
Needless to say, I wrote this for Palm Sunday. I've always been very impressed by Carl Tuttle's song "Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna in the highest" (1985 Mercy Publishing / Thankyou Music), and this is my attempt to do something similar. I wanted to put in some references to the immediate events: in particular the reference to stones crying out in Luke 19:40, and some of the titles of Jesus which can be deduced from the scripture accounts of the triumphal entry. But I also wanted to make the song singable on other occasions, and so not to get too tied down to the branches of the trees and the donkey which Jesus rode.
I also wanted a "praise" item to start a sequence of songs on the events of Holy Week - although whether the sequence will ever get written is another question entirely.
John Hartley.
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.