Upon the crowning of Edward VI, King of England, the Anglican Reformation proceeded rather rapidly. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, quickly convinced the King to abolish many "popish" practices still obtaining in the Church of England, and immediately began considering going so far as to celebrate the liturgy in the vernacular English language rather than in Latin. The 1549 Act of Uniformity established the English-language service that follows the Book of Common Prayer. Yet even before this epochal law, English musicians—led, surprisingly, by the presumed Catholic Thomas Tallis—began supporting the vernacular experiment with new or adapted music for worship in English. Fully four pieces of Tallis' English-language worship music survive in manuscript partbooks dating from 1547 or 1548. Three are anthems (a new and simply styled music for the choir to sing), and one is a Benedictus (a specific part of the Communion liturgy). One of Tallis' English anthems thus securely seminal in the growth of the genre is his Remember not, O Lord God, in the first of its two versions.

Like many English anthems from the Edwardian period, Tallis' Remember not, O Lord God conveys its text via a very simple and direct musical style. In fact, the original version of Remember not, O Lord God is almost completely chordal in its musical texture, declaiming its text with single chords for each syllable. Set against this stark backdrop, however, the times when the composer does apportion multiple notes to a syllable stand out with strong emphasis on important individual words—"saviour," "glory," "deliver us," "forgive." Thus, both choir and congregation may more powerfully reflect on the devotional sentiment, which is one of repentant prayer and hopeful adoration. Later, the composer reworked his earlier piece into a somewhat more elaborate second version. He retained the direct and generally simple chordal style of the original, expanding certain of the cadences with more ornament, and adding some repetition of text. The latter choice perhaps he made for added emphasis instead of mere ornament, as the repetitions include "for we be very miseruable [in our sins]," "for Thy name's sake," "be merciful," and "we shall set forth Thy laud and praise."

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