Bournbrook’s favourite carols

With contributions by Peter Hitchens, Alp Mehmet, Richard Brookhiser and more.

The below featured in our 2020 Christmas issue, available here.

A doorway into the England we have now completely lost

Peter Hitchens – Mail on Sunday columnist

I shall cheat here by naming two favourites: I greatly love the Coventry Carol because of its dark, unique beauty, its utter sorrow and the carved, gothic doorway it offers into the England we have now completely lost, of Guilds, Rood Screens and devotion, which could not coexist with the Reformation or what followed. Yet we must regret its passing.

But it is a very cold song and needs a choir, so when Christmas actually arrives, I long most of all to sing the raucous, rural melody of Good King Wenceslas, a carol many churches seem to think is beneath them.

It is traditional for the Lord Mayor of Oxford to sing the part of the King in the city's great Christmas concert each December, a tradition which seems to link everyone in that vast Victorian chamber with a jolly, charitable feast of the sort we often hope for but do not always get.

And I like its promise that 'Ye who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing' helps to fill the collection plates.

The message and meaning of Christmas rolled into one

Alp Mehmet – Migration Watch UK Chairman

O Come All Ye Faithful is a wonderfully joyous and rousing carol; the message and meaning of Christmas rolled into one. I love both singing it and hearing it sung. And, without fail, it brings back memories of a lovely family who lived a couple of doors from us in 1950s East London.

I recall one Christmas Day in particular, when the extended family returned from church (possibly via the pub), led by an uncle banging away on a bass drum, a neighbour carrying the eldest daughter on his shoulders (she must have been about fourteen years old) and everyone singing O Come All Ye Faithful. It wasn’t long before most of the street was out to join in and wish neighbours a merry Christmas.

The old ones are the best

Richard Brookhiser – National Review Senior Editor

Do I have to pick only one? Is there a small ad hoc collection of songs, winnowed by time and enthusiasm, with a higher average level of quality? But if forced, I go with The First Noel (or Nowell in England).

This tells the story with unusual diction and a momentum powered by triple time and that ever-repeating melodic phrase.

Two thousand plus years, and still rolling on.

The nation’s favourite

Luke Perry

Oh Holy Night is consistently voted the Nation’s favourite Christmas carol, and rightfully so.

Created by the French composer Adolphe Adam in 1847, its classical nature (meaning 'sung by a choir') provides the perfect retreat from the seasonal party pop songs, that are crammed onto my work radio and repeated day-in day-out — for my own torture.

It is a soft melody; the delicate transition to the chorus is spectacular, with the pitch increasing to an even slower paced, gentler voice that can bring a tear to one’s eye.

My favourite version, undoubtedly, is from King's College Choir — accessible on YouTube, I highly recommend a listen.