Last week in church, I sang "I'm But a Stranger Here," and I noticed something about the final phrase:
The hymn is in G major, and both "Heav'n" and "home" in that final phrase are sung to G notes, the tonic (or home note) of G major, so there's a musical feeling of returning home when both "Heav'n" and "home" are sung.
When I started this project, I made a point to separate the text from the tune because some texts are sung to different tunes and some tunes are used with different texts, but I think "I'm But a Stranger Here" is pretty firmly tied to "Heaven Is My Home," which is the tune it's sung to. What I mean is that I think "I'm But a Stranger Here" and "Heaven Is My Home" were written for each other, since the title of the tune is a phrase in the text itself.
