Kingdom songs

Kingdom songs are the hymns sung by Jehovah's Witnesses at their religious meetings. Since 1879, the Watch Tower Society has published hymnal lyrics; by the 1920s they had published hundreds of adapted and original songs, and by the 1930s they referred to these as "Kingdom songs" in reference to God's Kingdom.

With the 1966 release of Singing and Accompanying Yourselves with Music in Your Hearts, a policy was introduced to use only songs written by Witnesses. Subsequent collections were released in 1984 and in 2009, each retaining, retiring, or revising previous songs and introducing new songs. By 2012, an edition of their previous hymnal Sing to Jehovah was available in 171 languages, including several sign languages.

In addition to songbooks containing sheet music and lyrics, releases in various audio formats have included vocals in several languages, piano instrumentals, and orchestral arrangements. The orchestral arrangements, referred to as Kingdom Melodies, are drawn from the three most-recent collections.

In the late 19th century, the Bible Students (from which Jehovah's Witnesses arose) used many well-known songs and melodies. They also used well-known melodies with their own lyrics. The prefaces of Songs of the Bride and Poems and Hymns of Dawn indicate that these hymnals include hymns adapted from other Protestant hymnals such as Hymns of the Morning,Gospel Hymns,Jubilee Harp,Winnowed Hymns,Epworth Hymnal and Songs of Pilgrimage. These melodies were often works of famous composers, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Joseph Haydn. Lyrics were often also adapted from works of famous hymnal writers including Philip P. Bliss, Horatius Bonar, Fanny Crosby, Philip Doddridge, Thomas Hastings, John Newton, Isaac Watts and Charles Wesley.

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