Easter, Day 7: Hallelujah Day

LOOK: Voice of the Bell by Lumen Martin Winter

Winter, Lumen Martin_Voice of the Bell — Lumen Martin Winter (American, 1908–1982), *Voice of the Bell*, 1965. Oil on board, 18 × 52 in. Long Island Museum of American Art, History, and Carriages, Stony Brook, New York. This was a design for a mosaic mural for the entranceway of a school on Staten Island.

LISTEN: “Hallelujah Day” | Music by Abe Janowitz and Julius Grossman, 1955 | Performed by the Deep River Boys, accompanied by Sten Carlbergs kvartett, 1955

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding

Sing, sing the whole day long
Sing the hallelujah song
This is Hallelujah Day!

Sing, sing till early dawn
A great new chorus will be born
On this hallelujah holiday

Hallelujah, have a little lujah
Sound that magic melody
Everybody’s singing
You can feel it in the air
Celebrating, congregating
From the mountains to the sea
Everybody’s singing
Hallelujah everywhere

Hallelujah (3×)
What a joyous holiday
Hallelujah (3×)
This is Hallelujah Day!

Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong
Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding
(Repeat)

Sing, sing the whole day long
Sing the hallelujah song
This is Hallelujah Day!

Sing, sing till early dawn
A great new chorus will be born
On this hallelujah holiday

Hallelujah (3×)
What a joyous holiday

Bells are ringing
(Ding-dong, ding)
We’re all singing
Hallelujah
This is Hallelujah Day!
Hallelujah Day!

This swing song was originally released in Norway in 1955 by the African American gospel group the Deep River Boys, which at the time consisted of Harry Douglass (baritone), Edward Ware (bass), Jimmy Lundy (first tenor), and Vernon Gardner (second tenor). They attained quite the popularity in Scandinavia and even recorded some songs in Swedish and Norwegian. Here they’re accompanied by an instrumental jazz quartet led by Sten Carlberg of Sweden.

The song makes me laugh with its silliness, particularly the bell imitations! But I dig it. “Hallelujah” is a Hebrew word meaning “God be praised!” (Hallelu = praise; Yah = Yahweh.) I found no statements from the artists involved about what occasion is being celebrated in the song, but it seems that it very well could be Easter. A day when church bells all around the world call believers—like every Sunday, but today with special vigor—to gather together in worship of their risen Savior.