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Most Sundays I get to church early. The main reason is to score a seat on a padded pew. Church can sometimes be annoying enough without adding the pain of a bad hip into the bargain.

Second, I sometimes have to drag in a bunch of snacks and shut-up food for my nursery kids. The less cantankerous they are, the more I can partake of the spirit of naproxen.

Getting to church a few minutes ahead of time also allows me to appreciate the prelude music played as the chapel fills up. Prelude music is intended to put people in the proper mood for worship.

In theory, it's like the opening score to a movie you've been looking forward to seeing. Everyone knows what's coming when they hear the music for a James Bond film — danger, fighting, explosions, torture and sex.

For this reason, nobody falls asleep before James Bond kills somebody. It would be a perfect waste of tickets and popcorn. I don't know why church prelude doesn't accomplish the same thing. We're talking "the greatest story ever told." Right?

This doesn't seem to work at church. As the chapel fills up, people laugh, talk and wander around looking for their seats. Whatever is coming from the organ is in the remote background. I never see anyone in deep meditation before the service starts.

For old guys like me, LDS Church prelude music is like Ambien administered through a keyboard. If left alone, I can get reverent to the point of unconsciousness inside of a minute.

None of this is the fault of the person playing the organ. In the Pioneer 6th Ward, the organist is sometimes 18-year-old Jensyn, middle daughter of next-door neighbors Bishop Geoff and Karly Short. I've known her since she was 3.

This longstanding connection should pay off when it comes to Jensyn taking my requests for the prelude music. It doesn't.

Jensyn has refused to play even severely toned down versions of music by Little Richard, Elton John, Jerry Lee Lewis, Ray Manzarek of The Doors or Leon Russell.

I have no idea why. It's impossible to find music more reverent than Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" or The Doors' "The Crystal Ship," unless maybe it's Iron Butterfly's "In a Gadda Da Vida."

I've asked, pleaded and even offered Jensyn money to play more moving prelude numbers, something meaningful for a guy who's about to spend two hours tending toddlers for the Lord.

None of it works. She will not depart from the church's correlated "the tomb is empty" music. She says her dad won't like it. I say her dad's the bishop. He's not supposed to like anything.

Me: "C'mon. Ten bucks for just a minute of 'Rocket Man.' "

Her: "Get thee hence, Kirby."

It's sad. All the beautiful music there is in the world — Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix — and all we can come up with to set the tone for worship is something people don't seem to pay attention to or that causes them to fall asleep. If that isn't a sin, I don't know what is.

Maybe things will change. Polygamy did. In a hundred years from now, perhaps Led Zeppelin will be considered solemn enough to touch our souls while at the same time keeping us awake. It worked when I was younger.

Robert Kirby can be reached at rkirby@sltrib.com or facebook.com/stillnotpatbagley