Gregorian Chants and Dirty Lyrics

[Lafayette]

Many centuries ago I read somewhere that the Gregorian Chants came about when the local populous got carried away in their singing and started inserting dirty lyrics in the church hymns of their day. The person (I think was Gregory) in charge of the choir decided to create a new form of music totally different from the secular music of his day which is where Gregorian Chants came from.

Wikipedia tells me that this is incorrect.

Can someone tell me where I got this idea?

 

[Alex The G and T]

I am most interested to see any serious answers to this question.

But my first, immediate inclination was to start writing dirty lyrics to traditional hymns.

 

[Parson]

Actually @Alex The G and T is on a well worn right track. I doubt that there are many familiar hymns which has not had someone rewrite them to scandalize and amuse his/her audience.

@Lafayette -- I cannot tell you where you got the idea. But I can tell you that there is a lot of myth out there that the Wesleys and Martin Luther adapted bar songs for hymns. But this is an ancient version of what we call an "urban myth."

Did the Wesleys Really Use Drinking Song Tunes for Their Hymns? - umcdiscipleship.org

 

[Lafayette]

I didn't mean to imply that these persons set out to rewrite their hymns with profane lyrics. What I meant, and what I think happen, was the church hymns had the same or similar melodies as the the secular songs of their day and the singers unconsciously or consciously substituted dirty lyrics. The song leader (Gregory?) not wanting this to continue decided to write a whole new type of music that wasn't familiar to the common people hence the Gregorian Chants.

As I said I have no idea where I heard or read this. It may be like Parson has said it was a medieval urban legend.

This reminds of something else I saw and heard. I was watching a movie biography of Ray Charles where in a scene Ray has written a hit song and is telling a woman about it and is quite happy, The woman is horrified. The melody he used was an old gospel song.

P.S. I like the link you provided.