William Billings & Donald Trump
Populism and Elitism in America’s Music & Politics
I know that is a click-bait title, but you’re reading at least this far. Just be thankful I didn’t title this post “Making Singing Congregational Again.” Why not keep reading a little further to see what other corny shenanigans I might employ?
My PhD Studies
For the past few years, I’ve been taking online seminary classes working towards a Ph.D. in Church Music and Worship from Southwestern Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas. Scott Aniol was the guy that recruited me into the program. Some of his early advice was to decide as soon as possible what area of research and focus I would like to study. I didn’t have to think long about the subject area I wanted to consider. I knew I wanted to land somewhere in the period of the 1700s in early America. This period fascinated me for several reasons.
First, despite the unrest of the War for Independence, there was a desire and vigorous effort to learn to sing music in the country churches of New England. Second, there was a purposeful effort to sing music by “note” instead of “rote.” That is to say, efforts were made to have people be able to read the music on the page instead of just echoing it back from a song leader. To that end, there were so-called “singing schools” that were started with the desire to train congregants in these small towns to sing more skillfully. These singing-school masters would often travel and hold these school classes in various cities in the region. Eventually, they would compile songs into tunebooks that they would sell to subsidize their income. These early printed tunebooks and hymnals would often have primers on music theory at the beginning. All of this interested me.
Forward-Moving Helix
I once heard someone say that “history is a forward-moving helix.” It is not so much that it repeats in an exact cycle. Instead, it seems to move forward in a cyclical or circular pattern, but it still has forward progress. That forward movement still may have a noticeable pattern. Living in the time of Donald Trump, I couldn’t help but see certain parallels when studying the music of colonial America, particularly when it comes to one man, William Billings. While Billings and Trump are not an exact mirror of one another, there are some similarities in their stories worth noting.
First, for different reasons, Trump and Billings break the mold of what was expected to have an influence on the times in which they lived. William Billings had no proper musical pedigree that would explain his musical ascendance. He was trained as a tanner and thrust into that work at his father’s death at fourteen. Donald Trump didn’t have the Ivy League law degrees that Obama, Bush, or the Clintons had. In the case of both these men, this lack of pedigree infuriated those around them. Billings died in poverty, whereas Donald Trump will certainly not die in a similar state. Still, they similarly broke the mold of what was expected to have a voice in politics and music.
Second, Billings and Trump both emphasized the voice of the people in their respective arenas. Billings sought to get the voice of the people singing again. Trump seemed to recognize the people’s voice of frustration lost on many other politicians. Still, Trump’s rise was a mystery wrapped in an enigma. By all measurements, he was cut from the same cloth as the Clintons, Rockefellers, Kennedys, and others. Everything about Trump early on said he was nothing more than a Trojan Horse candidate, only promising to bring conservatism back to the forefront of American political governance. Given Trump’s history and associations with progressive elites, many conservatives were rightly suspicious. But, for reasons I don’t feel qualified to weigh in on, he has been a thorn in the side of many of those same elitists, big government former friends. The vitriol that has been directed at Trump seems to all but confirm that he is not a puppet for them. Trump and Billings are not identical but similar. They both were unlikely characters in advancing a people-centered approach to singing and politics, respectively.
Third, they both drew harsh critiques from those that would have previously been considered like-minded in goals and philosophy. Billings drew the most scathing critiques from pastors and fellow musicians who did not like the direction his music seemed to take. Billings’s rise seemed to suggest that one did not have to attend a European conservatory of music to be able to train people to sing. More shockingly, Trump showed that not only did you not have to receive diplomas from Ivy League institutions, but you could also run in these socialite circles, and that does not have to be the definitive predictor of how you’d govern. Every indicator from Trump’s past would seem to suggest that he would be yet another candidate of the elites and not the people. In Trump’s case, this was not prescriptive of how he governed.
Not the Typical Blueprint for Cultural Change
Stay with me here. I’m not trying to be a revolutionary here. I don’t consider myself a populist. I don’t want a music culture run by those who have no training in music. Nor do I want anarchy. But what I am saying is that when the tides shift and there is an uprising by the masses, in one sense, it should be seen as a judgment on those elites. Also, Doug Wilson has said that “God draws straight with crooked lines.” He uses the weak and unlikely to accomplish his plans. He is creative in history, repeating the cyclical patterns of using broken vessels to bring about change and reform. Billings and Trump are imperfect vessels that show the true essence of humanity. Trump’s ascension grew from a people who were fed up with the elitist governmental overreach of politicians that always promised limited government on the campaign trail, only to stealthily add to the reach and size of the federal government. The love of William Billings’s music today is similarly telling. Billings made no pretense of being one of the elite musicians from Europe. Instead, he tried to write music that would bring the churches to greater degrees of singing in choirs and pews.
Even though others wrote more tunes than him, we often associate William Billings with a particular type of psalmody known as the fuging psalm tune. His tunes weren’t even the most published “fuging tunes.” We don’t have the same downstream perspective on Trump. Maybe DeSantis or others will have more of an impact on politics than Trump has had. Time will ultimately show us that.
But either way, no one would honestly argue that Billings or Trump are the textbook model or blueprint figures to bring about cultural change. It may be true that both of them have success attributed to them that likely should not be solely identified with them. Still, they provide a rebuke to Christians who too narrowly write off quirky characters as not being able to bring about change in the landscape of music, politics, or some other area of life. We should give thanks that the Lord works in this way. It means when things look hopeless, there is always a reason to have hope.
William Billings’s Music
If you want to find out more about William Billings, check out this album of his music by Paul Hillier and His Majestie’s Clerkes. Particularly, listen to CHESTER, believed to have served as America’s first national anthem before Francis Scott Key’s later composition.