“Amazing Grace” is a 200-year-old song with a surprising history
It is sung an estimated 10m times each year
In 2015 Barack Obama gave the eulogy at a funeral service in Charleston, South Carolina, for a black pastor and eight black parishioners who were shot dead at their Bible-study class by a white supremacist. The president’s speech reflected on the state of race relations and God’s grace, suggesting that, amid the horror and the anger, forgiveness might one day be possible. As he finished, Mr Obama began to sing “Amazing Grace”. The congregation, many of them weeping, joined in. No one needed a hymn book.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “How sweet the sound”
Culture December 16th 2023
- Conservatives are trying to disrupt Hollywood, with some success
- When Charlie Chaplin was cancelled
- “Amazing Grace” is a 200-year-old song with a surprising history
- Some thought covid would change literature. It has not
- The best albums of 2023, as chosen by The Economist
- Is the age of Milton Friedman over?
From the December 16th 2023 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Pep Guardiola, football’s greatest coach, is in a bind
A serial winner is learning how to lose
The Economist’s word of the year for 2024
The Greeks knew how to talk about politics and power
What do feta, cucumbers and cottage cheese have in common?
Social media and the internet are changing how people cook and relate to food
Germany’s former chancellor sets out to restore her reputation
But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds
The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist
Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies
What to read to understand Elon Musk
The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction