Songs Of Christmas
Posted by Tipper on December 11, 2008 at 2:40pm
Just in time for Christmas-Paul and Pap's first Christmas CD is available NOW! For the past few weeks you've been listening to a few of the songs on the player-the CD has additional songs (you can see the titles below). All music and vocals are performed by Paul and Pap with the exception of The Little Drummer Boy an instrumental performed by Henry Wilson, Pap's baby brother. Henry has been playing guitar-mostly Chet Atkins style-since he was a kid.
Two of my favorite Christmas songs are on the cd, Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem and Good Christian Men, Rejoice. While The First Noel is a song I sing every Christmas, its never been one of my favorites-until this year. Paul's vocals are truly outstanding-between his voice, the music, and Pap's tenor it gives me chills every time I hear it and brings tears to my eyes.
After becoming enamored with the song-I began to wonder about it's origin. I assumed it was a fairly new song-maybe from the early 1900s-I was wrong.
The First Noel is one of the oldest Christmas songs around-as old as 400 years
There are some folks who think the song originated in France-some think England
Noel-is a loud shout expressing the joy surrounding Christ's birth
It's considered a folk song
The original version-had many grammatical errors-showing that an uneducated person wrote the song (which makes it mean even more to me)
The writer was obviously excited about Christmas-even though during that time Bibles were not accessible to every day folks-and even if they had been-most people couldn't read
For many years after the song was written the clergy frowned on songs such as The First Noel-making it a true song of the people
In 1833 The First Noel was finally published by William Sandys and soon afterward The Church Of England began using the song as a hymn
Amazing how the song survived-just by word of mouth-sung around the fire passed on to each generation. Somehow knowing The First Noel was written by someone with no education and no great aspirations makes the song seem truly from the heart.
To hear 4 of the songs jump over to the Blind Pig & The Acorn If you are interested in purchasing one of Paul and Pap's cds- Songs of Christmas- Here are the details:
cds are $13.00 each which includes shipping and handling or if you'd like more than one-the first cd is $13.00 with each additional cd being $10.00 which still includes shipping and handling. You can pay by check or by Paypal. Email me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com for the address or paypal account.
If you are local to our area and would like a cd-email me for a list of locations where they are available!
Hope you enjoyed the history of the song-do you have a favorite Christmas song?