Advent Calendar 2021 – Day 12 🎍

As it is Sunday, it is one of the days on which I bring you versions of Christmas Carols. And as my usual weekend bonus there will be three songs today, two of which I have never shared before.

The carol Silent Night is extremely well known, and there have been many recorded versions by artists in the popular music field as well as more traditional versions. Of all of these, my favourite is the one I have shared before:

I think that is stunning. So beautifully and tenderly sung, with absolutely no diva tendencies getting in the way of a simple, but lovely, tune. The video is gorgeous, too. This was released as a non-album single in 1991, reaching #12 in Ireland and #60 in the UK. I think it deserved so much better. The carol itself dates back to 1818, when it was composed by Joseph Mohr and Franz Xaver Gruber in the small town of Oberndorf bei Salzburg, in Austria.

My second song for today is a version of one of my favourite carols by one of my favourite singers. A natural fit for me:

The fan video compiled for this is rather nice, but nothing can really add to the beauty of the carol and Kate Rusby’s voice. O Little Town Of Bethlehem is based on an 1868 text written by Phillips Brooks. The carol is popular on both sides of the Atlantic, but to different tunes: in North America to St. Louis by Brooks’ collaborator, Lewis Redner; and in the United Kingdom and Ireland to Forest Green, a tune collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams and first published in the 1906 English Hymnal. Kate’s version is on her album While Mortals Sleep, released in November 2011 – the second of her five albums (to date) of Christmas songs. It reached #91 in the UK albums chart, exactly the same position as Sweet Bells, her first Christmas album from 2008. I rather surprised myself when I looked back through my notes and found that I had never shared this one before – it was an easy decision to rectify that omission!

My third choice for today is a newly released video by one of my favourite YouTube covers bands, who have just released an album of Christmas tunes. This isn’t a carol I knew before – I suspect it is better known in the States than over here – but I rather like this:

Foxes And Fossils usually have one or more of the three Foxes taking lead vocals, but only Maggie Adams appears on this, providing some of the harmony vocals. The lead is taken by Darwin Conort – he has sung occasionally on their videos before, and I think he has a wonderful voice. Some background information, courtesy of Wikipedia:

I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem “Christmas Bells” by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that “hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men”. After much anguish and despondency the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep” and that there will ultimately be “…peace on earth, good will to men”.

Longfellow’s wife, Frances, had died in an accidental fire at their home in July 1861, and it is thought that he never recovered from this blow. Against his wishes, his son Charles joined up for the Union Army in March 1863, and was severely wounded in November, though he later made a full recovery. Longfellow wrote the poem on which this carol is based on Christmas Day 1863. There have been many recordings of this, notably by Bing Crosby (is there a Christmas song that he hasn’t recorded?), Johnny Cash, Burl Ives, and Suzy Bogguss. They all take it at a slightly slower pace but I prefer the F&F treatment, which I think is lovely.

A little Sunday bonus for you. As I said earlier in the month, the fabulous Hafod Hardware aren’t making one of their Christmas ads this year, so I’m sharing the previous four. The next one will be here in a few days but until then I thought you might like this story from Friday:

That is the first time I’ve ever shared a video from the Royal Family on here, and may well be the last time. In case you didn’t spot it, the album that Prince Charles is buying is That Spell, the latest by Andrea Von Kampen, released in August this year. Andrea, you may recall, provides the beautiful songs which accompany Hafod’s ads. There is a news story from ITV which gives you some more background to this visit, but I can’t embed it. If you’d like to see it, you’ll find it here. Andrea was, quite rightly, ecstatic about this and posted it on Facebook – good for her!

That’s all for today, and I hope you enjoyed my selection of some lesser known versions of carols. All that remains is for me not to spoil the mood with my image of the day:

Oh well, it could have been worse, believe me. See you tomorrow 🎄