William Wilberforce and his friends and family sing it in Michael Apted’s Amazing Grace. And John Newton is moved to write it after he hears “an ancient East African melody” in Jeta Amata’s The Amazing Grace, which recently became the top-grossing film in Nigerian history. (It comes to the United Kingdom on July 16.)
But wait. Newton died in England in 1807. And Wilberforce died in England in 1833. But the first evidence we have of that famous melody being attached to Newton’s lyrics was not published until 1835. In the United States. And the melody — which went by the name ‘New Britain’ for years, even when ‘Amazing Grace’ was first recorded in 1922 — is “believed to be Scottish or Irish in origin“.
This is old news to some people, I’m sure, but I just heard about it this morning. Click here for more details. It’s fascinating stuff.
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