Is Amazing Grace (Bagpipes) a Scottish song? and who wrote it?

Amazing Grace On Bagpipes Instrument

Amazing grace is a song that holds meaning for many people around the world and touches everybody’s soul hear it. It brings peace, serenity, calmness, humility and joy all at once. Here’s a Amazing grace music on Bagpipe instrument that sounds hauntingly beautiful on an instrument like Bagpipes. In fact,  Amazing grace is most popularly played on Bagpipes. This instrument, which is a traditional instrument in Ireland and Scotland, has a particularly mournful sound that makes it perfect for “Amazing Grace”. However, the bagpipes were popularized by Scottish Highland regiments, which played the instrument during military ceremonies, funerals, and memorials. This video was shot in Barcelona, Spain and Solan, India, so enjoy the difference in Landscapes.

 

John Newton’s Amazing Grace 

“Amazing Grace” is a Christian hymn about a deep faith and love for God written in 1772 by the English poet and Anglican priest John Newton (1725–1807). In 1835, an American Baptist named William Walker (1809–75) set Newton’s words for “Amazing Grace” to a popular tune that Walker had composed, “New Britain” and became a popular song.

Newton wrote the words from personal experience. He grew up without any particular religious conviction, but his life’s path was formed by a variety of twists and coincidences that were often put into motion by his recalcitrant insubordination. He was conscripted into service in the Royal Navy, and after leaving the service, he became a slave trader.

In 1748, his ship was caught in a fierce storm off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland, Newton believed that he was going to die, so severely that he called out to God for mercy, a moment that marked his spiritual conversion. He swore an oath to God that if his life was spared, he would renounce the evil of slavery…….the sea became calm…..the storm passed, but he continued his slave trading career until 1788, he did not radically change his ways at once, his total reformation was more gradual. When he ended his seafaring altogether, he began studying Christian theology and spent the rest of his life speaking out against slavery……in later years Newton went blind…..he wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ and the line that say “I once was lost but now I’m found….was blind but now I see”…….sums it up perfectly……John Newton finally saw the evil of his ways and he changed for the better.

Also listen: Amira Willighagen – Amazing Grace

 

How did “Amazing Grace” become associated with Scotland?

This song has been reimagined in many ways, by countless artists. In 1969, Judy Collins recorded this song, inspiring a bagpipe arrangement by the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, and it became a hit. Amazing grace also was a number 1 hit in the 1970s in the UK when a Scottish Pipes and Drums Military Band did a cover of the song using bagpipes. Since then, the bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace” became so popular, and thus it came to be associated in many people’s minds with Scotland.

 

Amazing Grace 6 verses:

This song has the first five original verses of Amazing Grace as published in the 1779 Olney Hymns book.

1. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now I am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

2. ‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believed!

3. Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
‘Twas grace that brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

4. The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

5. Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

6. The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call’d me here below,
Will be forever mine.

The last original verse has been replaced with the more well-known final verse that starts; “When we’ve been there ten thousand years”.  This last verse was added to a version of “Amazing Grace” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, as it appears in her novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”.

 




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