When in about 1933 Aimee Semple McPherson was holding an evangelistic campaign in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota she overheard some business men talking about "Blue Monday." She had never heard the expression before. (I have encountered it often in more recent years in Australia where they have coffee mugs with the words it on them and even bumper stickers on automobiles) and South Africa.

Sister (that is what we all called her and what she preferred to be called. She hated to be called Aimee, and family and friends who used her first name called her Betty (Her middle name was Elizabeth), Sister asked some of the business men in Minneapolis what they meant by Blue Monday. They replied that is usually a "Murphy's Law" Day. ("Murphy's Law" means "Everything that can go wrong will go wrong!). Don't every buy a new American motor vehicle which was built on Monday or you're bound to have trouble. Workers returning from work on Monday after the weekend are careless and make mistakes because their minds are on their weekend activities!

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RE MURPHY'S LAW. Murphy is said to have been a real professor in a university on Long Island, New York, U.S.A.

One day he proposed an experiment to prove the law of averages to his class. He passed out pies to every student and said, "Now we are going to prove the law of averages by throwing all these pies up in the air. If the law of averages is true, half of them will fall down right side up, and half will fall upside down. Now toss yours up!"

The class obeyed. However, all the pies except one fell upside down. That one stuck to the ceiling. The law of averages was not proved by the demonstration but "Murphy's Law" was established: " EVERYTHING THAT CAN GO WRONG WILL GO WRONG!"

BLUE MONDAY IS A "MURPHY'S LAW DAY!"

Once Sister understood the dark implications of the phrase "Blue Monday" she had an idea of the reason for the circumstance, and she wrote what became one of her most famous and popular songs (Altogether she wrote more than 200 songs, five sacred operas: "Regem Adorate: O Worship the King" for Christmas in 1929, "The Iron Furnace"--about the Israelite's Exodus from Egypt", which cast her future third husband, David Hutton, as Pharaoh, and he surely turned out to be a "bad guy" like the Pharaoh!, "The Crimson Road" for Easter, "The Rich Man and Lazarus" based on Luke 16--my favorite, and what became the most popular, "The Bells of Bethlehem", a second Christmas sacred opera). I have seen them all, between 1929 and the present, most of them many times.

Every Sunday night Sister would sing a solo, and thunderous applause would require an encore (I operated the spotlights for years as a teenager, and followed her movements). When the second song was called for, Sister usually asked the audience of usually 7000 (Angelus Temple had 5300 seats but on Sunday nights another 1,700 could crowd in, sitting in the aisles, on the steps of the balconies, on the floors of the ramparts which came down to the platform from the first balcony (Sister always entered the auditorium by coming down the rampart on the right of the platform with an armload of red roses, usually on the arm of her daughter Roberta or her son Rolf (both are still living and we keep in contact. I saw both at our Cincinnati convention in April), and even sitting on the floor on the platform! Usually a couple of thousand listened outside on loud speakers, standing on the sidewalks or sitting on the grass of Echo Park across the street. And often it was necessary to open other auditoriums seating thousands more and pipe the radio signal into them for the people at least to hear the service)--Sister usually asked the audience what they wanted to hear. If we children, who sat up in front right below the platform, (my place was just below the pulpit and beside the pipe organ console) called out our favorite first it was always Blue Monday. If adults beat us to it they usually asked for "The Song of the Weaver." I may play it here as a piano solo but words are too many and too complicated to have translated, I think. So here is the text of my favorite of Sister's songs, which I sang last year in Nyergesujfalu and this year (1997) in Tata, Hungary. Victoria Oroszi translated in both places.

SOME FOLKS ARE ALWAYS COMPLAINING
THAT MONDAY IS A DAY OF WOE!
SOME SAY THAT MONDAY HAS A HOO-DO (American slang for a jinx)
THAT FOLLOWS THEM WHEREVER THEY GO.
THE WOES THAT BESET OLD MAN GRUNDY (a famous American sour-puss)
ARE NO WORSE THAN BETIDE THEM ON A MONDAY.
THEY WORRY WITH A FROWN
THAT IT ALWAYS GETS THEM DOWN (Piano accompanists use a downward gliss here)
THEY ALWAYS COMPLAIN OF BLUE MONDAY!

CHORUS: <<

BLUUUUUUUE MONDAY, (Sister dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief here),
ARE YOU TROUBLED BY BLUE MONDAY (and here again, as Victoria did in Tata)?
THE ANSWER MY FRIEND ENTIRELY DEPENDS,
THE ANSWER MY FRIEND ENTIRELY DEPENDS,
ON WHERE, AND HOW YOU SPEND SUNDAY.

(In English speaking countries where I have sung this, the audiences here almost always explode in applause, thinking that's' all there is to the song, but there is more:)

FOR SUNDAY IS THE DAY THAT THE LORD MADE.
HE HALLOWED IT AND SET IT ASIDE.
HE SAID IN HIS BOOK, "KEEP IT HOLY,
AND IN MY HOLY HOUSE ABIDE."
BUT IF YOU DISOBEY AND DEFILE IT,
FOR SOCCER OR SWIMMING ONLY USE IT, (Sister would change the recreations
NO WONDER THAT YOU FROWN according to the seasons)
THAT BLUE MONDAY GETS YOU DOWN.
YOU'LL ALWAYS COMPLAIN OF BLUE MONDAY!

SO COME GET A START ON THE RIGHT FOOT,
O LET'S BEGIN THE WEEK JUST RIGHT.
SEEK FIRST THE GLORY OF GOD'S KINGDOM,
HIS PRESENCE WILL BANISH YOUR NIGHT.
STEP FORTH TWO THE TUNE OF THE JOYBELLS (Here the pianist plays bells)
TO THE LITTLE BROWN CHURCH IN THE GREEN DELL.
AND THEN YOU'LL NEVER FROWN
THAT BLUE MONDAY GETS YOU DOWN (Pianist plays downward glissando).
YOU'LL NEVER COMPLAIN
OF BLUE MONDAY. (Repeat chorus).

(Note to interpreter: I told the story of the song because of your interest in Sister.

You told me you wished you were 40 years older so you could have known her.
Of course she was promoted to glory in 1944, 53 years ago this coming
September. I was at the funeral and burial. It was a glorious celebration
and ended with the Angelus Temple Silver Band with Charles Walkem at the
Steinway Concert Grand "Zongora" (piano) playing, "WHEN THE SAINTS GO MARCHING IN!"