Tongan Gospel Song - OKU OFI ' HOKU OTUA (Nearer My God to Thee) - Lui Fa

THEME SONG - NEARER MY GOD TO THEE
Nearer, My God, to Thee" is a 19th-century Christian hymn by Sarah Flower Adams, which retells the story of Jacob's dream. Genesis 28:11-12 can be translated as follows: "So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it..."
The hymn is well known, among other uses, as the alleged last song the band on RMS Titanic played before the ship sank.
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" is associated with the sinking of the RMS Titanic, as some survivors later reported that the ship's string ensemble played the hymn as the vessel sank. For example, Violet Jessop said in her 1934 account of the disaster that she had heard the hymn being played; Archibald Gracie IV, however, emphatically denied it in his own account, written soon after the sinking, and wireless operator Harold Bride said that he had heard "Autumn", by which he may have meant Archibald Joyce's then-popular waltz "Songe d'Automne" (Autumn Dream). In feature films based on the Titanic disaster, the "Bethany" version was used in the 1929 film Atlantic and the 1943, 1953 and 1997 films titled Titanic, while the 1996 miniseries features "Autumn" instead. The "Horbury" version was played in the 1958 film, A Night to Remember.
Wallace Hartley, the ship's band leader, who went down with the ship (as did all other musicians on board), liked the hymn and had wished to have it performed at his funeral. As a Methodist Briton, he was familiar with both the "Horbury" and "Propior Deo" versions but would not likely have used "Bethany". His father, a Methodist choirmaster, used the "Propior Deo" version at church. His family were certain that he would have used the "Propior Deo" version, and it is this tune's opening notes that appear on Hartley's memorial and that were played at his funeral. However, a record slip for a 1913 Edison cylinder recording of "Nearer, My God, to Thee", featuring the "Bethany" version, states that "When the great steamship 'Titanic' sank in mid-ocean in April 1912, it was being played by the band and sung by the doomed passengers, even as the boat took her final plunge." George Orrell, the bandmaster of the rescue ship, RMS Carpathia, who spoke with survivors, related: "The ship's band in any emergency is expected to play to calm the passengers. After the Titanic struck the iceberg the band began to play bright music, dance music, comic songs - anything that would prevent the passengers from becoming panic-stricken... various awe-stricken passengers began to think of the death that faced them and asked the bandmaster to play hymns. The one which appealed to all was 'Nearer My God to Thee'."
"Nearer, My God, to Thee" was sung by the doomed crew and passengers of the SS Valencia as it sank off the Canadian coast in 1906, which may be the source of the Titanic legend.

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My favorite hymn.. Church hymn