Tuesday, August 08, 2006

SoNG: Listen to My Heart's Song

Listen to My Heart Song
Origin unknown

PeHP Source: Peace Camps Sing produced by Sorrel Hays & Marilyn Ries, 1987; Peace Camp GatherSing, 2008.

Listen, listen, listen to my heart song.
Listen, listen, listen to my heart song.
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.
I will never forget you, I will never forsake you.

17 comments:

  1. The 'Listen Listen Listen' chant was given by Paramahansa Yogananda. It seems to come in several forms.

    Variations of the first part include:
    Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song
    Listen, listen, listen to my heart's song
    OR
    Hearken, hearken, hearken to the whisper of my soul
    Hearken, hearken, hearken to the whisper of my soul
    OR
    Take me, take me, take me, my Lord in thy love
    Take me, take me, take me, my Lord in thy love

    Variations of the second part include:
    I will always love you I will always serve you
    I will always love you I will always serve you
    OR
    I will never forget you I will never forsake you
    I will never forget you I will never forsake you

    I first heard the chant in about 1980, and used to sing it to my children as they dropped off to sleep each night.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't know where it started, but I first heard this song at a radical faerie fall gathering, 1988, Short Mountain Sanctuary. I sang it just about everywhere I went for years after.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't know where it started, but I first heard this song at a radical faerie fall gathering, 1988, Short Mountain Sanctuary. I sang it just about everywhere I went for years after.

    Klay
    klay 00 at g mail dot com

    ReplyDelete
  4. i was 8 years old and i went the the Association of Reasearch and Enlighment's (A.R.E.) camp in the blue ridge mountains of Virginia...i had the time of my life and the last night i was there we had something they called an "Angel Walk" where every person, in turn would walk between the two rows of everyone else and they would close their eyes and everyone would whisper how wonderful they were...we would sing "Listen to my heart's song" while they walked...it felt very sacred and meaningful...

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is a beautiful Chant first heard sung by Rabbi David Zeller.
    It is my impression that he wrote it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I know I first heard and quickly joined in at either several Rainbow Gatherings and Dead shows in the mid to late 80's. Also, I think it is featured on the "Be Here Now" album by Ram Dass. Of all the chants I learned at the formentioned events, this one I can call on with no hesitance at any moment. It brings me much peace. I sing it while swinging on swings; alone at times of deep introspection and being. It is like a breath. To meet someone else who can join in chant at chance occasion, would be terrifically flowing.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hello, Love this song, chant, or whatever it is called.

    We do a variation on it where at the end we sing

    I will never forget you
    I will never forsake you
    I will never forget you
    I will always love you

    I think of it as a song that God is singing to all of us and it brings me peace.

    Thanks for sharing it here.

    Suzanne

    ReplyDelete
  8. First heard this chant via ZBS Media's "Moon Over Morrocco" 'Jack Flanders' radio drama in the early '80 (by Tom Lopez); may have been garnered from Bhagavan Dass recordings from the late 70s when he was @ ZBS, or from the first Bhagavan Das album, "AH-"...

    Beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJune 19, 2009

    This song/chant is from Paramahansa Yogananda and I first heard it at the second Rainbow Family Gathering with a huge group of people holding hands singing, dancing, in a circle in the mountains above Lander, Wyoming in 1971. I was standing apart from the group talking to an older Native American guy who was just curious and watching. I felt a bit apart until someone grabbed me and pulled me into the circle. Then you couldn't help but feel the power of the oneness of the group.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I learned this chant, and many others, at Sufi yoga ,Dance, song, meditation group for children in the 1970's when i was 9 years old.

    I recall one night at seneca, just me and the lightening bugs in the total darkness- i hear one voice singing, "Listen, listen,listen..." from way off across a huge field.
    I responded "To my heart song..."
    We walked toward one another in the total darkness under the impossible hugeness of the starry night sky, until we met in the center of the field.
    Well I must admit I don't recall who the other voice was- but I sure do love her.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I first heard this just last year at The Unitarian Universalist Sr. High Mountain Con in Highlands, NC. I was 15 and blown away at how it made me cry so hard, just holding hands in a circle chanting/singing this. It blew me away again singing it last night at the exact same event. I'll never forget it.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The folks who credited Paramahansa Yogananda are correct and others are "pass it on" singers who ride his eternal wave of love. Listen, Listen, Listen was published in 1938in a songbook titled Cosmic Chants and may be his most famous of a huge collection of songs of love and devotion. The songs are protected by copyright of Self-Realization Fellowship,which he founded in 1920 and flourishes today. One can imagine Yogananda, a man of great devotion to God, might be pleased that his Heart's Song has spread so far and wide that many who sing it have no idea of its original source.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I heard this song performed by Snatam Kaur.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Summer 1973, at Pamona College where Baba Ram Das held a gathering to meditate and chant.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Im new to this and I heard a song with the lyrics, something along the lines of..

    '' all the angelssss.. singginnngg in my heeaarrttt '' it's a relaxing song and would love it for my kids. Anyone know?

    ReplyDelete
  16. Spring 1973. University of Notre Dame. My first time meeting Ram Dass. At the closing of the gathering we all got in a circle, held hands and repeated this powerful song/chant until the roof blew off and my life was changed forever. My spiritual journey had begun.
    Seems like yesterday.

    ReplyDelete