Come Thou Fount

Words by Robert Robinson (1758), music by John Wyeth (1813), arranged by AJ Harbison (2013)

I loved singing to my daughter when she was a baby (and I still do!), and I often sang hymns to her as lullabies at naptime or bedtime. We had a fan in her room for white noise, and I usually sang in tune with the drone of the fan. Once, while singing the hymn “Come Thou Fount,” I wondered what it would be like to sing the melody in a minor key instead of major. I really enjoyed the haunting quality of the minor melody, and I recorded this version of it, complete with a pedal point drone.

Lyrics:
Come Thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise His name I’m fixed upon it
Name of God’s redeeming love

Jesus sought me when a stranger
Wandering from the fold of God
He to rescue me from danger
Interposed His precious blood
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongues can never tell
Clothed in flesh till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to Thee
Prone to wander Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart O take and seal it
Seal it to Thy courts above