A Staid British Hymn Crosses the Atlantic and Becomes a Rollicking American Folk Favorite

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

What started out as a beautiful but, as far as I’m concerned, a little stuffy, hymn for the Christian church feast day of Epiphany, written by the Anglican bishop Reginald Heber and published in 1811, underwent a sea change after it voyaged to America. It acquired a new tune via the shape-note tradition that was developed in the mid-1830’s and became especially popular in Appalachia. (You can read a bit about shape-note singing in my post A Rich American Tradition in “Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal”) It also acquired a new first verse, with the original first verse becoming the refrain, at least in some versions. So I’ll start with the newly-purposed refrain:

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What on earth is going on in the “Coventry Carol,” with all the mournfulness and killing of children?

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Pieter Bruegel the Elder – Massacre of the Innocents – Google Art Project

When people first realize what the words to this carol are actually saying, they tend to be puzzled and/or outraged. I remember clearly someone in my own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, saying, “What on earth is going on with those kids being murdered?” Well, I can’t blame him. While I do love the song myself, it certainly can’t be said that it fits the stereotypical cheery Christmas template. The haunting melody is paired with a text that describes a horrible scenario: Herod the King commanding all young children in Bethlehem to be killed. Here are the relevant two verses that spell out the story:

O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This poor youngling for whom we sing,
“Bye bye, lully, lullay”?

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What’s a herald angel? And other questions answered about a confusing Christmas carol.

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Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay

Let me start out with the correct way to punctuate the title; it should be “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” So the title actually comprises two sentences. “Hark!” is a one-sentence command meaning “Listen!” or “Pay attention!” (The same thing is going on grammatically in “Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal,” which is also not typically punctuated properly.) And to whom should we pay attention? Why, the “herald angels,” of course. (Let’s spare everyone the joke about the angel’s name being “Harold,” okay?) A ”herald” is a messenger who sometimes blows a trumpet to get everyone’s attention before an announcement. The angels in the Christmas story don’t blow trumpets; they don’t even sing. They simply proclaim. So the illustration that I chose for this post is not correct biblically, but it does agree with the carol.

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Hacking through the symbolism in “Children Go Where I send Thee”

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Image accessed via SecondHand Songs

Man, if I went through this song line by line, starting to write as I am on Nov. 1, giving all the variants both of the song itself and also its precursors, Christmas would be long gone by the time I finished. I’m sure there have been whole doctoral dissertations written on just this subject. But not everyone shares my obsession with history and etymology, so I’m going to concentrate on this version, usually sung or performed as a Christmas song even though none of the verses except for the first one refers in any direct way to the Christmas story.

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A Hanukkah Song with Universal Appeal–“We Are Lights”

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haim charbit, Pixabay

I started out this post with what I assumed would be an easy-to-answer question: Why did Stephen Schwartz end up collaborating with someone named Steve Young for this song, writing the music but having Young write the lyrics? Schwartz is somewhat of a Broadway legend, having had at one point three hit Broadway shows running at once (Pippin, Godspell, and The Magic Show). In 2003 Schwartz wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Wicked, which just celebrated its 20th year on Broadway. Yes, 20. So there was no shortage of material about Schwartz, but I couldn’t find anything about his writing this specific song. And I became somewhat obsessed with finding out who this Steve Young was. While I don’t typically share my research process, such as it is, about these posts, this one seemed interesting enough to include here. First I googled “Steve Young” and came up with a Wikipedia entry about someone of that name who was very famous for something called the “outlaw movement” in country music. Hmmm. That didn’t sound too promising. After a delightful e-mail exchange with Young’s son, Jubal Lee* (Young died in 2016), we concluded that I had the wrong Steve Young. Jubal said that he was sure his dad wouldn’t have been able to keep quiet about working with the creator of Wicked and therefore miss out on a chance to impress his granddaughter.

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The Inn, the Manger, the Shepherds, and the Stable

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Not terribly inaccurate! Image accessed from https://donnagawell.com/2020/12/17/away-in-a-manger-at-migdal-eder/; no attribution given.

I never want with these posts to make musical texts less meaningful to those who sing or hear them, and that is especially true with Christmas music. If I disagree with conventional ideas, rest assured that there will always be a deeper and richer meaning to be had in their place. As usual, I’ve had a ball diving down into various and sundry websites, finally coming up for air to share with you what I’ve discovered.

Probably everyone reading this post knows that the context for the birth of the Christ child in the town of Bethlehem is a Roman census: everyone has to go “to his own city.” (There’s a ton of controversy out there about what and when this “census” was; I’m not going to get into that whole issue here.) Joseph, we are told, was descended from King David, who came from Bethlehem and had been plucked out of obscurity as a youngest son and shepherd boy, ruling Israel way back around 1,000 BC. Bethlehem was therefore probably where Joseph was born. Why wasn’t he living there at the time of the census? We don’t know; in fact, we know very little about Joseph. Perhaps he had moved to Nazareth because there wasn’t much work for a carpenter in Bethlehem. But now he and Mary have had to travel back, a distance of about 100 miles. They would almost certainly have traveled in a group with other people; a lone journey was very dangerous, and they can’t have been the only ones needing to show up for the census. And those scenes with Mary barely making it into town and almost giving birth in the street are most assuredly not confirmed in the text, since we’re told that “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.” They got there with time to spare. I’ve wondered, though, if perhaps they’d delayed their journey in the hopes that the baby would come before the trip? Impossible to know.

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Why Is the Christ Child Sometimes Called the “Christmas Rose”?

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image source unknown

There are many Christmas carols and songs that include the image of the Christ child as a rose. “Lo, How a Rose E’re Blooming” is a famous one, made even more so from the modern pairing of that 17th century hymn with the contemporary pop song “The Rose” by  Amanda McBroom. “When Blossoms Flowered ‘Mid the Snows,” is another one such with its lines:

When blossoms flowered ‘mid the snows
Upon a winter night,
Was born the Child, the Christmas Rose,
The King of Love and Light.

(This song was originally titled “Gesu Bambino,” written by—you guessed it—an Italian.)

So I had always vaguely thought of the image of a rose, possibly a red one for contrast, blooming against the white snow, a miraculous event like the story of Christmas itself. And that would indeed be a beautiful image, except for one problem:

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Is “Joy to the World” a Christmas song?

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Hey, isn’t that a pretty dumb question? “Joy to the World” is one of our most traditional of Christmas carols. At least, that’s what most of us would say. But a quick look at the words reveals no mention of mangers, angels, shepherds, stars, or Christ as a baby. So what’s the song really about? I was intrigued to see the name “Isaac Watts” as the author of the lyrics. He’s known as the author of many famous hymns, including “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Oh God, Our Help in Ages Past.” So it wouldn’t be surprising for him to have written about Christmas.

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What’s the Mystery in “O Magnum Mysterium”?

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Master of the Nativity of Castello (fl. 1450–1500), image accessed via Wikimedia Commons, public domain

I’d always kind of assumed that the answer to this question would involve something high-flown and theological about the incarnation of Christ, but that’s not really the case. This text, which has been set to some of the most sublime music ever written, is all about the earthy details of the Christmas story. Does that surprise you? It did me, when I actually took the time to look at the translation.

Before I go any further, here’s the Latin original with the English version:

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
iacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
meruerunt portare
Dominum Iesum Christum.
Alleluia!

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!

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