Sic Semper Tyrannis

O Holy Night

So, I was thinking about a post of the best lyric ever penned to try to appease you lyric-lovers out there and I’ll get to that discussion, but instead, I got to thinking about my favorite Christmas songs. Here’s one that’s right up there at the top:

O holy night!
The stars are brightly shining
It is the night of the dear Savior's birth!
Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till he appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn!

Fall on your knees
Oh hear the angel voices
Oh night divine
Oh night when Christ was born
Oh night divine
Oh night divine

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming
Here come the wise men from Orient land
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger
In all our trials born to be our friend.

Truly He taught us to love one another
His law is love and His gospel is peace
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother
And in His name all oppression shall cease
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

I don’t really care for most of the Christmas musical fare, (probably leftovers from my retail days), but let me try to elucidate what exactly I love so much about this song.

First of all, I like the dramatic word painting that’s going on in the first verse. Sing the melody to yourself and notice that the melody to the fourth line sounds like it’s just going to repeat the melody you’ve just heard in the first three lines, but BAM! Right there on the fifth line we get this minor chord we haven’t heard before. And I don’t think it’s an accident that the composer is setting the phrase “Till he APPEARED” with this new musical motion. And this “appearance” moves us forward from a world of sin and error, musically, as well as what the words are literally saying. And just the phrase “the soul felt its worth,” has kind of haunted me for years. I like that idea of a newly awakened soul---this mysterious, “no-one-knows-what-it-really-is-kind-of-amorphous-thing-that-we-kind-of-think-might-be-inside-of-us” feeling it’s own worth.

And then the “thrill of hope” is set to a new major-key melodic phrase we haven’t heard yet that brings with it even more motion and the perception of moving forward. It really is as if a weary world of minor chords is now rejoicing!

I can’t say anything about the “Fall on your knees” section other than that it’s obviously quite dramatic, musically going back to a minor chord. And it’s appropriate that the statements here are commands set to unresolved musical phrases until we get some resolution on the word “night.” And of course, everyone loves to hear the high notes that are really nicely built up by the end of this section.

Today, I’m reading the second and third verses for the first time and I think there’s some awesome stuff going on there too. First of all the author is comparing the star that the wise men saw to the “light of Faith,” and puts us right there where the poor shepherds would have been that night. And there is the mystery of all mysteries—a baby born in a barn, supposedly no better off than the bleary-eyed shepherds hanging out there, yet the story has it that this was none other than God drawing near “in all our trials born to be our friend.”

The third verse, I like the words themselves, (“Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother,” “Let all within us praise His holy name” this is good stuff!), but I can’t hear the great word painting relationship that’s going on in the first verse, (although I suppose a case could be made for the minor-chord emphasis that would happen on the word “name.”) But I can relate. It’s always harder to write second or third verses as good as your first verse!

Merry Christmas, b-yotches!

posted by Mike @ 1:24 PM