Thomas S. Monson:
Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to return.
He blesses us with prophets who help us to learn.
President Monson humbly leads God’s Church today.
As we heed his words, we’ll walk a righteous way.
Duane E. Hiatt (original composer of the song),
March 2010 FRIEND Magazine
Link to the SHEET MUSIC for this verse.
I'm not a fan of the new verse, because the beat is messy due to the fact that it doesn't follow the same number of syllables. For the most part, each of the four lines in the original verses is 11 syllables long, but the new verse is 12, 12, 12, and 11. Lyricists who force feed syllables into half beats make it difficult to teach young children who rely on a strong beat.
ReplyDeleteI think as long as the one teaching it to the children is confident in the timing and patterns that the children can learn it well. It is a little tricky. That's why I made sheet music for it (which there is a link to in the post) so I could see if visually and make sure I do it the same each time. But this is the verse written by the original writer of the song, and is the one published by the Church, so that's why I decided to go with this one. There are other verses in this song in the original songbook that don't match up exactly as the first verse as well. But to each their own. :)
Delete