This is never what Praise To The Man was meant to sound like. The original song about Joseph Smith wasn't a victory march—it was a haunting funeral lament. William W. Phelps wrote it just months after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith—as a eulogy. That upbeat Scottish tune we use today likely didn’t exist when the hymn was written. So what did Praise To The Man originally sound like? It was set to a melody called Star in the East, a more solemn and introspective tune. Here's a clip of Ben