Re: [Worship] Re: Christmas carols

["Bruce L. Johnson" <bjohnson@worshipmap.com>]

>Bill McGinnis wrote:
>>
>>      According to a survey done in 1943
>>    1. "Joy To The World"
>>    2. "O Come All Ye Faithful"
>>    3. "O Little Town Of Bethlehem"
>>    4. "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" (Edmund Sears, Richard Willis)
>>    5. "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing"
>>    6. "Silent Night, Holy Night."
>
>Dean Thomas replied:
>Nice research, guy! I kind of figured that O Little might get in there,
>but I sure would like to have seen the voting on that survey. I'll bet
>3-6 was close! I'm surprised at Silent night being so far down.

Please note, this survey was, first of all in the USA.   If it were
international the results would be a bit different.  "Silent Night" would
then,  almost undoubtedly be tops.

Next, the survey was in 1943.  I love all these carols (and many more!) but
I doubt "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" would be so high up anymore.  The
same for "O Little Town of Bethlehem."    Also, if you know a bit about the
history of hymnbooks, you will see that the hymnals of 1943 did not even
INCLUDE many great older carols, and so they were often forgotten in favor
of popular late 19th century carols (the same is often even more true for
other hymns).     So it would be hard for a survey of the hymns done in the
churches in 1943 to include carols not even IN many of the hymbooks of that
time!

Now look at hymnbooks from the past 15 years and you will discover a
resurgence of many older carols, some great traditional carols that many
hymnbooks for some reason didn't used to include.

Dean warned us about using so-called Christmas carols that aren't.   Oddly,
"Joy to the World" is just such!  It is actually an "Advent" hymn--which
Watts based on Psalm 96--and originally more about Christ's SECOND advent
than his first!  I'm not too troubled about using it at Christmas, but this
should be kept in mine.

Anyway, I suspect a broad survey today would more likely yield 1,2,5,6 as
the top four.      BUT, if you are thinking "of all time" you must still
consider some of those other old "traditional" carols more hymnbooks have
brought back.

Bruce Johnson
"Worship Map"


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