This page last revised 9 January 2001

Oh promise me that you will take my hand,
The most unworthy in this lowly land,
And let me sit beside you, in your eyes
Seeing the vision of our paradise;
Hearing God's message while the organ rolls
Its mighty music to our very souls;
No love less perfect than a life with thee,
Oh, promise me! Oh, promise me!

(Clement Scott, 19th-century American)

Thus the organ as poetic accessory at that place where high romance and sentimental spirituality meet. Other authors have showed a more earthy approach, particularly as the 20th-century progressed.

In her re-working of the Phantom of the Opera story ('Phantom', 1990), Susan Kay fills the bedroom scene with vivid, explicitly erotic images:

"At first when I heard the organ begin to play, I burrowed deeper into the pillows with my hands over my ears. I didn't want to hear his hateful music... But it was impossible to shut out the swelling power of the organ, and slowly, reluctantly, I took my hands away and started to listen intently... As the notes drifted through me, strangely urgent and compelling, I found that I had begun to rock gently to the primitive, pulsating rhythm. I became aware of answering pulses all over my body, pulses in my wrists and neck and groin of which I was normally quite insensible... The rhythm of my heart was rapidly gathering a frenetic pace... and almost involuntarily I began to let my hand wander over my body... Neither innocence nor ignorance was a shield against that music which was deep inside me now, gathering a throbbing momentum that made me twist and writhe... My arms had wrapped around the pillow and I rode each thrusting note until the crescendo burst inside my head, flooding my entire body with extraordinary sensation. When the organ stopped I lay still in the darkness listening to the slowing drum of my heart in the awesome silence. Was this what he had meant by danger?"

This extended account is probably the only one of its kind in literature to play so fully on the organ/organ pun. Ribald references before the twentieth century are much less specific, perhaps even inadvertent, though bearing in mind the rich vein of bawdy punning which was evident in English literature from before the time of Shakespeare, perhaps quite intentional.

"The organ 'gins to swell;
She's coming, she's coming!
My lady comes at last."
(W.M. Thackeray: At the Church Gate)

"She touched his organ, and from that bright epoch, even it, the old companion of his happiest hours, incapable as he had thought of elevation, began a new deified existence."
(Charles Dickens: Martin Chuzzlewit)

The Church Times made the following comment (date unknown):

Nor will anyone guess the delicious touch when George Thalben Ball walked in and promptly pushed his organ round till he got it in the right place.

And the following is from 'England in the Eighteenth Century' by R.W. Harris:

Harley also employed Defoe to write the Review, and St John had his own organ in the Post Boy.

Roddy Doyle's unmistakable humour pervades the following extract from 'The Commitments' (1988):

-No, hang on, listen. He told me he got fucked ou' o' the folk mass choir. D'yis know why? For playin' The Chicken Song on the organ. In the fuckin' church.
-Jaysis!
They laughed. This didn't sound like the James Clifford they'd known and hated.
-Just before the mass, Jimmy continued. There were oul' ones an' oul' fellas
walkin' up the middle, yeh know. An' he starts playin' The fuckin' Chicken Song.
-He sounds okay, said Deco.
No one disagreed with Deco.

A familiar organ/organ joke appears in Linda Fairstein's 'Final Jeopardy', (1996), a novel dealing with rape:

"Did you hear the one about the woman who was raped by a man with a very little penis?" Luther went on, clearly thinking he was still on a roll and would win me over with this one.
Before I could decide whether to say "no" or a more strongly worded "I'm not interested," Luther announced that the woman said to her assailant, "'Did anyone ever tell you what a small organ you have?" And the rapist looked back at her and answered, 'Lady, I never knew I'd have to play it in such a large cathedral."' I was silent. I had heard lousy, tasteless attempts at humour about rape before, but this was at a time and place to hit a new low.