Thomas Hastings and his contemporary, Lowell Mason, have often been criticized for rejecting the music of the eighteenth-century American psalmodists and nineteenth-century folk hymnody in favor of what are sometimes considered to be insipid arrangements or imitations of imported European melodies. Hastings, in particular, made a number of vehement statements castigating pieces in these idioms. It is certainly true that Hastings held a low opinion of many pieces in these genres, but it is also true that he printed a surprising number of them in his tune books. While many of these items were probably included because he needed them to help sell his tune books, it is also evident that his rejection of the earlier American pieces was not quite as complete as it is sometimes made out to be. This study traces his use of these “objectionable” items and of some tunes the origins of which are uncertain.