Saturday 18 June 2022

Hymnwriters Go Shopping Number 1 - Charles Wesley

Shopkeeper: Ah, hello, Mr Wesley. What can I do for you?

Charles Wesley: Hello, bicycle shop owner. I was wondering if you could repair my bicycle?

Shopkeeper: And what is wrong with it this time, Mr Wesley?

Charles Wesley: My....

John Wesley (running in): Charles! Stop! It's not funny anymore!

10 comments :

  1. Had to ask an ex-Methodist to explain this - the shame.

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  2. Know as the bicycle hymn in my previous church choir

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    Replies
    1. And in a church I used to attend

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  3. I once did a sponsored bike ride with a Bishop to whom this really did happen. He sat in the middle of the road singing it. (The much beloved and much missed Simon Burrows of Buckingham,)

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  4. So if lots of other people were wondering... Google did finally give me the answer to this obscure (to non Methodists?) reference, being the line in the Wesley hymn "And Can It Be" that contains the words "My chains fell off" and apparently causing the hymn to be widely referred to as the bicycle song. OK, *now* this is funny.

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    Replies
    1. I have already posted the key to this on the Beaker Folk Facebook Page, for those that are unaware there is another Oasis of Fuzzy Thinking out there.

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    2. Not obscure to non-methodists! One of the most loved and repeated hymns. But I always wondered who Ada Zinnerstrife was. Life, apparently, is nought without her.

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    3. Often sung as 'My brains fell out, my heart was free, My nose went out and followed Thee'.

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  5. Is this like when Edward Perronet had a real star of a plumber?

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