Eccles: A most interesting hymn, Alan, and I see that you managed to get it set to one of the most peculiar hymn tunes in common usage. It starts off as a minor-key Russian love song as best sung by a basso profundo, and it ends up as a music-hall waltz, something like "Down by the old Bull and Bush, bush, bush!"
AD: Yes, indeed. We do get many people singing "The news that God's Kingdom has come, come, come!"
And lastly, Ladies and Gentlemen, for your own delight, a final chorus of the two shirts song!
E: Still, in these interviews we are more concerned with the lyrics. Are you sure, for example, that God's Kingdom has come already? Don't we have a little-known prayer which says "Thy Kingdom Come," as though it were something we needed to pray for?
AD: Er, well of course most of the words are based on Jesus's own instructions to his disciples.
E: But should those words really be sung in a different context?
AD: I suppose you mean the bit about "you don't need two shirts on your back?"
E: Yes, I've heard of several people catching pneumonia by assuming that the climate in Britain was the same as in the Holy Land.
This man is wearing too many shirts
AD: Well, we now print the hymn with a warning that we bear no liability if people misinterpret the words.
E: Yes, "tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more," is another example.
Maybe prisoners for a bit longer?
AD: Apparently, we've had some complaints about that too. And I told a blind person that he could see, and he promptly got up and walked into a statue of St Kevin of Mayhew.
E: Well, thank you very much, Alan. That's it really. Fancy joining me for a drink down at the Old Plymouth Hoe?
AH: Hoe, hoe!
