Is it okay to write non-religious lyrics to religious tunes?

Question

Is it sacrilegious to write new lyrics to melodies traditionally used to express joy and/or gratitude to God and/or Jesus? Or are so-called "sacred" tunes fair game, as long as you're tasteful?

For example, I wrote some lyrics about Simple Notepad, an Android app I use, set to the melody of Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus". (I'd include it here, but apparently that would exceed Yahoo's character limit.)

It's true, I don't regularly venerate those Heavenly Guys. I'm sure I would, if I felt a need to go around convincing people I had Invisible Magic Friends in the Sky. But other things keep coming up, you know? For example:

• Amazing discounts on frozen pizzas

• A sudden impulse to go into a store and, when the salesperson said, "May I help you?", say, "No thanks, I'm just looking," then pull out a magnifying glass and examine everything in great detail

• A compulsion to move to Vermont and act like an ornamental hedge

I've also often wondered if my decision to stay "meh" on the Christian thing was something God, the Creator of time and space themselves, would certainly know way before I did it. Could God actually be Up There slapping His Forehead and saying, "Dang! I was SURE that guy was going to believe in Me—but no!"? I should probably post that as a separate question, though.

Besides, piousness isn't the issue here; it's songwriting, right? So thanks!

Answer 1

I'm glad that you brought this topic up my friend because it's actually a scientific music experiment. There's a lot of people that say Christian music is lame! But you can take the exact same music and substitute some immoral modern sex-filled words to that exact same music and suddenly it's the greatest song ever written! That's proving that Christian music is really cool! It's not the music that people aren't liking it's the words that are set to that music!

Answer 2

There was a common practice to rewrite words to church hymns of the same music

Answer 3

Yes, providing you're not doing anything blatantly disrespectful.



In fact, some hymn tunes were originally secular tunes and were borrowed by hymn-writers. For instance 'What Child is this' uses the tune 'Greensleves', 'Be still my soul' uses a tune from 'Finlandia', and there is a hymn called 'Spirit of God', set to the tune of the 'Skye Boat Song'

Answer 4

Go ahead and write some new words to Handel. I would like to see that. It may be good, it may be funny, or it may just suck. You'll never know if you don't try.

Answer 5

Have you looked at the fun people have had with that music on youtube?

Answer 6

No because they are Pattered. That would be Law Breaking!

Answer 7

It is an improvement