Sandbox / Amazing Freaking Wick Check

This page is a wick check for Amazing Freaking Grace.

My concern is that the trope is basically "Amazing Grace" exists, which might be redundant with Standard Snippet. For what it's worth I've also never liked the name - it comes across a little complain-y in a way we don't like to use in trope names anymore ("Amazing Freaking Grace again!") A rework, focusing on its frequent occurrence in funerals, may work ("Amazing Grace Means Funeral"). An expansion into "Stock Hymn" to cover other commonly heard hymns like "Ave Maria" or "Blessed Be The Ties That Bind" may also be an option, although that may still be chairs-y.

Checking 50 wicks (50/50)

Amazing Grace as a stock funeral song/specific references to Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan (11/50)

1. Diegetic Switch: This happens in Star Trek II at the end of Spock's funeral, in which Scotty plays "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes, and the tune is taken up by the soundtrack as the scene cuts to an exterior of the ship and Spock's casket being fired into space.
2. One-Take Wonder: Batman: The Animated Series: During the Joker's eulogy to Batman in "The Man Who Killed Batman", Harley playing Amazing Freaking Grace on the kazoo had to be done in one take because everyone was laughing too hard afterwards to do it again — you can hear Arleen Sorkin about to fall apart laughing through the whole song.
3. Where No Parody Has Gone Before: (about Family Guy) In the episode "Road To Rupert" Stewie's teddy bear is accidentally sold at a yard sale, prompting him and Brian to go retrieve it. At one point Stewie thinks that his bear is dead and imagines his funeral being similar to that of Spock's at the end of The Wrath of Khan, complete with Stewie and Brian playing "Amazing Freaking Grace" on the bagpipes.
4. Death Note II: The Hidden Note: Amazing Freaking Grace: During spoiler: Angela's mother's funeral, the song is played on the bagpipes.
5. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Played on the bagpipes during spoiler: Superman's funeral.
6. Men with Brooms: The "Fun" in "Funeral": A less-than thirty second scene that crams about five or ten different mishaps in while introducing Neil Bucyk. What should be a straightforward cremation goes horribly (and hilariously) awry when: The conveyer belt's motor shorts out, causing the recording of Amazing Freaking Grace to play in reverse...
7. Funny.Alfa Legion: It's also revealed that the Assassins murdered Karl. spoiler: But as he was protected by the Broodlord Karl returns to life, complete with the Amazing Freaking Grace bagpipes reversing. I'm assuming Amazing Grace played at Karl's funeral.
8. The Amazing World of Gumball S1E27 "The Date": Judith plays "Amazing Grace" for Mr. Cuddles funeral on a bagpipe, then switches to "Danny Boy".
9. Criminal Minds S 2 E 16 Fear And Loathing: Complete with Amazing Freaking Grace playing, in memory of the detective who is shot by a civilian who thought he fit the profile of the UnSub.
10. ShoutOut.Suburban Knights: Ma-Ti's spoiler: death scene and funeral and the whole ending of the series is a shout out to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. * * Paw spoiler:playing Amazing Freaking Grace on kazoo also references a scene in the Batman: The Animated Series episode "The Man who Killed Batman," in which Harley Quinn does the same.
11. The Kentucky Cycle: Naturally, it's "Amazing Grace" that the hillbillies are singing when Jed Bowen gets home, having deserted from the war, and walks right up to his grandfather Patrick's in-progress funeral.

Amazing Grace heard in a context related to death but not funerals/church (8/20)

1. Dog Days (2018): Dr. Mike's assistant Ernie (John Gemberling) sings "Amazing Grace" to spoiler: Jimmy, as he sits in the waiting room crying over Brandy's death.
2. Heartwarming.Honkai Impact3rd: In Chapter 11-EX, Kiana is at her lowest, and considered committing suicide to prevent herself to become a Herrscher again. Fu Hua's spirit stops her, saying that she regrets having doomed Kiana to this fate (from what happened at the end of Chapter 6). Kiana, who previously was hard on Fu Hua for betraying her, goes to forgive the class president and accept her help in subduing the HOV inside her mind; with their efforts, they eventually succeed. Then, when she finds herself being surrounded by Honkai Beasts, Kiana sees an "image" of Himeko walking past her as Amazing Freaking Grace plays, saying "Kiana, what are you waiting for?" This gives the Kaslana girl her Heroic Resolve to assume partial control of her Herrscher powers with her own mind and trash the beasts with it, as she vows to "turn this imperfect world into what she always dreamed of". Fu Hua is rightfully impressed at her feat. This one is death-adjacent, since Kiana is seeing a vision of the dead Himeko encouraging her, but it's not funeral/mourning related so I put it here.
3. HorizonZeroDawn.Tropes A To M: One of the first audio logs a young Aloy finds is recorded by a dying Old One, singing the strangely apropos last verse of the hymn. - - > "The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, / The sun forbear to shine; / But God, who call'd me here below, / Will be forever mine." Also death-adjacent, but not funeral/mourning related.
4. TearJerker.Public Service Announcement: Covenant House have made some really gloomy commercials over the years. Most of them tend to be very downbeat and serious, But this one is just downright melancholic. It starts off with a teenage girl in a blanket (which is also her makeshift home), sitting near a bus stop. She stares into the camera with a blank expression as the words "How Young" swipe in. The screen then cuts to a crying baby in the same spot as the words "Do They Have to Be" "Before we Care?" swipe in. The fact that anyone would leave a baby on the street is just wrong on so many levels, and the commercial doesn't get any better after that. Video clips of teenagers laying on the street are shown one by one. And to make things more emotional, we hear people talking about their abusive parents ("I felt like my life was in danger, like, the abuse was getting worse and worse" "I slept anywhere that I could find. I slept on a subway, I slept on the street, i slept in a park"). All while "Amazing Grace" plays in the background, thus adding to the emotional factor.
5. Raven's Cry: Plays over the flashback to Chris' parents getting killed at the end of the game.
6. Incognito Cinema Warriors XP: Rick and the 'bots do this in wolf howls when the werewolf dies in Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory.
7. Website/YTMND: Whenever a celebrity passed away, some sites would show a picture of the celebrity while "Amazing Grace" played.
8. Deadly Premonition (Tear Jerker): The usage of Amazing Freaking Grace in the infamous scene near the end. When you go by the original religious intent of the song (that no one is beyond redemption, regardless of their sins in life, and that we all are able to do the right thing) and what the character is trying to do: spoiler: get to the clocktower and stop the gas, according to the director. I guess this is death-adjacent?

Amazing Grace heard in other church services/religious contexts (6/50)

1. Terrible Interviewees Montage: In The Fighting Temptations, the main character is looking for people to audition for a church choir. The interviewees include a girl who sings Amazing Freaking Grace badly, a bunch of kids who do a dance about Jesus baptizing them, a guy who sings "Isn't She Lovely" (including the instrumental) and some hillbilly who plays multiple mouth-related instruments but doesn't sing.
2. Characters.American Girls Collection Historical Characters (Marie-Grace Gardner): Sings "Amazing Grace" for her uncle and teacher's wedding. Assuming that this wedding takes place at a church.
3. The Blood of Jesus: One of several hymns sung during the film; this one is sung during the baptism.
4. Crime of the Age: When we first meet the cook, he's heard singing "Amazing Grace" (during which the detective joins in during the 2nd half of the verse), though the cook noticeably substitutes the word "cook" for the word "wretch"; something that becomes significant with his eventual slip-up that the cook took the book, and by extension was not truly a Christian. I think this counts as a religious use.
5. Carrie Underwood: The opening lines are interpolated over the ending of "Something in the Water". About finding religion.
6. Zoeys Extraordinary Playlist S 1 E 4 Zoeys Extraordinary Neighbor: The church choir sings "Amazing Grace".

Amazing Grace is heard outside of a funeral/church context or ZCE (19/50)

1. Standing Between the Enemies: In Sound of the Sky, spoiler: Sorami stops a battle by playing Amazing Freaking Grace.
2. Swiss Bank Account: "Foot of Pride" by Bob Dylan: - - > They like to take all this money from sin\\ Build big universities to study in\\ Sing "Amazing Grace" all the way to the Swiss banks!
3. Luminous Witches: Ginny's rendition of "Amazing Grace" is featured as a recurring leitmotif for the series.
4. Awesome.Incarnations Of Immortality: Being A Green Mother: Satan singing Amazing Freaking Grace and exploding.
5. Characters.D 4 DJ Peaky P Key (Yuka Jennifer Sasago): Intentional Engrish for Funny: She is not very good at speaking English, despite having American heritage. This becomes a plot point in one of the events in Groovy Mix where she has to learn how to sing Amazing Grace in English.
6. Characters.Kakegurui (Sumika Warakubami): Her performance of this old classic brings everyone in the audience to tears and gives Yumemi a lesson that she’s not to be trifled with when Yumemi loses in a 92-8 vote blowout.
7. Characters.Sound Of The Sky (Princess Iliya Arkadia): Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Wholesome heroine, savior of lost people and perfomer of Amazing Freaking Grace.
8. Characters.The Amazing Race 17 (Connor Diemand-Yauman & Jonathan Schwartz (Team Glee)) Their introduction clips showed them singing the song as "Amazing Race". They sang it again upon their elimination. - - > Amazing Race, how sweet the game
9. Mardock Scramble: The ending theme of the first movie. Appears again as background music in the third movie.
10. A Devil and Her Love Song: A song sung often by Maria.
11. Dropkick Murphys: A fairly up-beat instrumental version. Just a cover version.
12. Cheers S2E19: "Coach Buries a Grudge": Everybody at the service is marching off to hang T-Bone in effigy (hang the cutout, that is), when Diane takes the podium and starts singing "Amazing Grace". T-Bone's old teammates come back and start singing with her, Coach with his arm around the T-Bone cutout, and the episode ends.
13. Mystery Science Theater 3000 S06 E18: High School Big Shot: Lack of Empathy: At the start of the episode, Mike is suffering from a bad headache. Despite knowing this, Crow promptly begins practicing the cymbals. This is followed swiftly by Tom blasting his bagpipes note launching into "Amazing Grace" due to not knowing Mike's "request" of "I Have a Headache" /note and Gypsy busting a gut over Seinfeld's Kramer.
14. Voltron: Legendary Defender S5E5: Plays as the reprogrammed sentry is blasted off into space.
15. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: On the final night of the Teas family build, a camper at Camp Barnabas thanked the volunteers and sang this song.
16. Wonderfalls: In the end of "Totem Mole". Not that recognizable since it is sung in Cherokee.
17. Endless Ocean: One of the songs in the original, played when the player arrives at Mo'ia Atoll for the first time.
18. Like a Dragon: Played over the end credits for the first game.
19. Drawn Together: Plays in the background pretty much any time a character delivers a moral of some sort.

Being used as the impromptu trope page for the song itself (3/50)

1. Common Meter: Gospel group The Blind Boys of Alabama recorded a version of "Amazing Grace" set to this tune. It works but some may find the Mood Dissonance confusing. Also wicked in the description as an example of a Common Meter song.
2. Heel–Faith Turn: Amazing Freaking Grace: English sailor John Newton converted to Christianity after his life was saved in a storm, became a minister, and penned the hymn about his experience. However, it is a myth that this also led him to free the slaves the ship was carrying. In fact, he continued in the slave trade for some years before leaving to enter the ministry, and only became an abolitionist years later, participating in William Wilberforce's Parliamentary campaign to abolish the African slave trade. Also used in the page quote.
3. YMMV.Guilty Gear Strive (Suspiciously Similar Song): Elphelt's theme "Extras" borrows from Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas Is You", with a nod to the Christian hymn "Amazing Grace".

Being glad that they didn't play Amazing Grace, I think? (2/50)

1. AwesomeMusic.Twenty Eight Days Later: They also made a very good choice for the scene with Jim's parents - rather than going for Amazing Freaking Grace, they went with a quiet, simple, underplayed rendition of "Abide With Me."
2. Evensong: Everything's Louder with Bagpipes Well, everything is louder with the pipes, even in rural Wilts. Including funerals (although Amazing Freaking Grace was not played): namely, that of spoiler: Lord Crispin, brother to the Duke of Taunton, they being descended of a Stuart royal bastardy. Old Rory, marquess of Badenoch, has his own personal piper (as does spoiler: the Duke: one at Luineag, and one at Camserney, his properties in Scotland).

Probably just an Incredibly Lame Pun (1/50)

1. Video Game High School: Multiple times in S2E5 Law talks about working his thighs. It seems like Law's usual boasting until spoiler: near the end of the episode he is precariously over a pit of water holding on only by his amazing freaking quads. Can't tell if Amazing Grace was actually played over this scene. Might just be a pun.