Three Men, Three Countries, One Masterpiece—“Homeland”

Do you want to know my clearest memory of this piece? My choir had scheduled it for a March 2013 concert; when we sang it through for the first time at rehearsal I suddenly realized that the woman who sat next to me was crying. The words had hit her like a ton of bricks—her fiancé had been killed in Vietnam, she said. And indeed the words are very emotional, even more so when you know their history.

The first of the three men associated with this piece was Cecil Spring Rice, a British diplomat who served as ambassador to the US starting in 1912 and who wrote a poem named “Urbs Dei” (“City of God”—an echo of Augustine) or “The Two Fatherlands.” The poem’s point was that a Christian owes allegiance both to his earthly country and to the kingdom of God. After the war Rice re-wrote the first verse to echo a more general idea of love and sacrifice, and that version is the one used today, usually referred to by its first line: “I vow to thee, my country.” In 1921 Gustav Holst, the second collaborator, was asked to set the poem to music, and he did so using the theme from “Jupiter” in The Planets, needing only to extend the music slightly to fit the text. I was amused to read that Holst’s daughter Imogen said later “the time when he was asked to set these words to music, Holst was so over-worked and over-weary that he felt relieved to discover they ‘fitted’ the tune from ‘Jupiter.’” The piece was published as a hymn to be sung in unison with orchestral accompaniment and often made an appearance at Armistice Day ceremonies. It has been used at the funeral services of many famous Britons and also that of John McCain. I’m posting a couple of the relevant videos below.

But the piece that my choir performed was not the unison hymn above; it was instead the choral version that has additional lyrics and voicing by Z. Randall Stroope, an American composer and conductor. Stroope is often listed simply as the “arranger” in descriptions of the piece but he is far more than that, having written a powerful second section of his own, including some additional music, and using only Rice’s first verse. I have to say that I wish I had known a little more about this whole background when we sang the piece, as I found some of Stroope’s lines to be rather puzzling at the time. But in my research for this article I found out that he had included his stanzas to honor his father, who was in the 1942 Bataan Death March during World War II.

Well, I thought, why don’t I see if I can get some info from him? He’s still very much alive and part of the contemporary American music scene. And since he was born in 1953 but his father’s experiences date to 1942, the dad had clearly survived the war. Dr. Stroope responded quickly and graciously to my request for information. Here are the relevant sections of his e-mail:

As I stated in the preface, the text “transcends any cultural or national boundaries.”  Whether it be culture, religion, language, ties of blood or some other aspect of a human life where heritage or connection to something greater is valued, there will always be a “Homeland” for them.  I felt compelled to write a stanza in the style of the original hymn.  It underscores the reality that systems, political structures, and leaders will fall short.  But the “ruts run deep” of those who have given their lives to our freedoms, and we must find the personal fortitude and commitment to carry on that legacy and make it even more secure.

The lines referenced above read:

But the ruts run deep
Cut by the blood of faces above
And voices now silent.

You’ll see more “road” imagery in the complete lyrics which I will list below the videos. I won’t try to spell it all out; my stance on trying to boil down poetry into prose has been stated a number of times. But I’m sure you can see the double meaning of the literal ruts in the road, with prisoners stumbling over them on the way to a horrific destination, and the metaphorical ones that have been carved into the heritage of freedom that they represented.

As for Stroope’s father, he spent the rest of the war from 1942 until the 1945 Allied liberation of the Philippines as a Japanese POW:

My father occasionally did tell of his experiences in a Japanese prison camp, and about the day of liberation when the allies entered the camp.  He said that his weight, which was about 170 pounds when he was captured, diminished to 80 pounds at the time of liberation, and he spent several months in a hospital recovering.  He has three purple hearts and a bronze star from his service in the war.  After his recovery, he went into agriculture, purchased a ranch and enjoyed that pastoral setting throughout his life.

Interestingly enough, when I looked up the death march on Wikipedia I found that many of the US soldiers involved were from New Mexico as part of that state’s National Guard units. Stroope was born in Albuquerque, so his father must have been part of those troops. I couldn’t resist including a picture of the memorial in Las Cruces:

Now for the videos. First up is a performance conducted by Stroope himself from his website–not a performance video, as is always my preference, but accompanied by striking imagery:

Then scenes from Churchill’s funeral in 1965, accompanied by an orchestral version of the song. I was unable to find a video of the actual funeral:

Finally, the use of the tune from John McCain’s funeral. It’s used only in the recessional, played by the US Navy Band Brass Ensemble, and the program simply lists it as “‘The Jupiter Hymn,’ from The Planets, Gustav Holst; arr. D. J. Miller.” So not terribly accurate as to its actual title, but I wanted to get this in the post anyway. You’ll have to start at about 3:50:30 for that part–or you can watch the whole thing!

Here are the full lyrics with Stroope’s additions–accessed via a site named Musixmatch.com–I assume that it’s posted under some type of fair use permission, and so I use it here: