I love Kate Rusby’s two Christmas albums Sweet Bells and While Mortals Sleep. My introduction came through an appearance on Songs Of Praise where her love of the historical Christmas music of southern Yorkshire and environs was much in evidence. On these albums you’ll hear familiar words to alternate tunes, familiar words to familiar tunes …
Joy, Joy is a new/old Christmas themed song from Isaac Wardell. Wardell’s lyrics cleverly takes us from the manger in the first two verses to the first chapter of John’s gospel in the third, and then ties the themes of the first three verses in a fourth which reflects on Jesus’ later sacrifice. The melody, …
Having celebrated the Lord’s Supper at worship today, what better way to close worship (and acknowledge Jesus’ first and second comings) than singing Christ Is Coming! Let Creation… John Ross Macduff’s lyrics, coupled with Joachim Neander’s classic tune, Neander (naturally) couples well with the themes of Communion itself, which bids Christians look back to the …
O Come, O Come Emmanuel is one of my favourite hymns at any time, let alone Christmas. (As anyone who has ever been around to listen when I’ve sung it well knows.) There’s about fourteen or fifteen versions of this in my iTunes library. Sadly it doesn’t get included in corporate worship very much because …
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