Ralph Vaughan Williams Songs - To Be A Pilgrim Lyrics

Ralph Vaughan Williams - To Be A Pilgrim

Ralph Vaughan Williams - To Be A Pilgrim Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: The Pilgrim's Progress
Released: 1906

To Be A Pilgrim Lyrics

To Be A Pilgrim

Also known by its first line "He Who Would Valiant Be," this hymn is an adaptation by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).

The Pilgrim's Progress was published in 1678 by John Bunyan (1628-88); the poem "To Be A Pilgrim" is extracted from that work. Vaughan Williams collected a melody from a Mrs. Verral of the Sussex hamlet Monk's Gate, and also from a Mrs. Weobley of Herefordshire five years later. The instrumental is sometimes known as "Monk's Gate"; the words used in standard hymn books are also slightly different from the original by John Bunyan.

"He Who Would Valiant Be" was chosen by Margaret Thatcher to be sung at her funeral, which took place in April 2013. If nothing else, this was an improvement on "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead," which after a sustained campaign by anti-Thatcherites reached #2 in the UK chart at that time.