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Original poster

Carols make me cry, every single time!

68 replies

Moaningturtle · 19/12/2021 13:27

Just channel hopping and come across choir boys singing Once in Royal David’s City in Westminster Abbey, and that’s it I’m gone!!

I’m not religious and don’t really have much of a childhood connection to carols beyond primary school assemblies. I have no idea why they get me in the feels so much. I sob my way through Carols from Kings every year.

Anyone got a particular carol that gets to them?

OP posts:
ThatsMySantaHisBeardIsSoFluffy · 19/12/2021 20:06

@ApplePippa

Hark the Herald - the final verse with the descant. It brings a tear to my eye every time as its just so joyous!
Yes! I can't stop the tears at that point. 😭😭😭
IHateCoronavirus · 19/12/2021 20:12

Me too, brass bands, carols and singing children (even if they’re shit). They get me every single time.

Ohyesiam · 19/12/2021 20:15

I was a badass , doc Martin wearing spikey haired student nurse in central London in the 80s.
The Salvation Army came into the quadrangle and played carols and I wept my way through the shift…

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Iwantacampervan · 19/12/2021 20:37

I've been to our village Nine Lessons & Carols this evening - the first solo verse of 'Once in Royal' nearly set me off, fortunately not as I was reading one of the lessons. There aren't many carols that I dislike listening to - I'm looking forward to the Christmas Eve Carols from Kings on Radio 4.

justbreathejust · 19/12/2021 20:39

O Holy Night for me

'The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn' :'(

MrsTophamHat · 19/12/2021 20:42

For some reason Mary's Boy Child by Boney M got me the other day Blush

weegiemum · 19/12/2021 20:43

I love It Came Upon The Midnight Clear.

The line "oh hush the noise, ye men of strife, and hear the angels sing"

I'm tearing up even typing it!

tiredandveryhungry · 19/12/2021 20:50

John Rutter's Christmas album makes me blub for hours on end. Angels' Carol in particular. No idea why.

Rainartist · 19/12/2021 20:56

Me too! Not religious either but there is something about the ancientness of them all and how generations have sung them.

I cried my way through the history of carols by Lucy Worsley the other night on the BBC, it's a repeat but I bet it's on iPlayer if anyone's interested. Really lovely show and singing.

ApplePippa · 19/12/2021 21:02

@tiredandveryhungry

John Rutter's Christmas album makes me blub for hours on end. Angels' Carol in particular. No idea why.
Oh yes - the Angels' Carol! Particularly the lines "How can you measure the love of a mother / How can you write down a baby's first cry".
Bollocks2Covid · 19/12/2021 21:14

Salvation Army bands do this to me. They reminds my of my grandparents who lived next door to a lovely Sally Army couple and the husband played in the band. All long dead and buried now 😢

Also very young children singing Away in a Manger and Little Donkey.

Sh05 · 19/12/2021 21:20

Me too and I'm not even Christian but I always well up watching the nativity and listening to the carols.

Shelleyjelly80 · 19/12/2021 21:22

@ApplePippa those lyrics are from candlelight Carol-my absolute favourite!!!!
I play in a brass band and I'm completely fine playing carols, but listening to others playing sets me off. We had our Christmas concert last Thursday and our senior band played Candlelight Carol and it was glorious x

SpikeDearheart · 19/12/2021 21:23

When I was heavily pregnant I sang A Spotless Rose at the nine lessons and carols service, which has the line "and in that rose contained was heaven and earth in little space", which resonated so strongly. I get a lump in my throat every time I hear it now.

Also the Coventry Carol, obviously.

Hunderland · 19/12/2021 21:28

Also O Holy Night. DS sang it in a wonderful choir in a church when early teens and I sobbed Blush

I have said I want it played at my funeral (not his version Grin)!

ApplePippa · 19/12/2021 21:37

[quote Shelleyjelly80]@ApplePippa those lyrics are from candlelight Carol-my absolute favourite!!!!
I play in a brass band and I'm completely fine playing carols, but listening to others playing sets me off. We had our Christmas concert last Thursday and our senior band played Candlelight Carol and it was glorious x[/quote]
Ah yes, wrong Rutter carol!

Aardvarkitsabloodyaardvark · 19/12/2021 21:37

O Holy night makes me sob.
For me it's as a pp said. The thought of these carols being sung over the years.

Bloody tearful now Blush

mumsiedarlingrevolta · 19/12/2021 21:38

I love Christmas Carols

Silent Night a fav among many

I always wonder why no one on Desert Island discs picks a Christmas Carol-because I would!!

Gomorrah · 19/12/2021 21:41

DS2 is now 25 but whilst at high school, every year on the last day of term before Christmas, parents were invited to a school carol service in the local church. I always cried but have such lovely memories.

Silent Night - my favourite since childhood.

MrsRussell · 19/12/2021 21:43

Really weirdly... the ones they sing at primary school now. Turn Down The Lights, because it makes me think of DS's last Christmas at primary school. He's a big grown up now and they do the Nine Lessons and Carols in the local cathedral, but I still listen to his year do Turn Down The Lights on the school Soundcloud and sob my heart out.

BogRollBOGOF · 19/12/2021 21:48

DS1 was less than a week old for his first Christmas. It had not been an easy week and on Christmas Morning "Away In A Manger" hit me right in the hormones at the line "no crib for a bed" Poor, poor newborn baby Jesus having no crib! Every time I hear it I'm straight back to the hormonal soup Grin

I've always found carols deeply moving and it is those centuries of shared ritual and Christmas at a basic level. So many years I've had months of Commercial Christmas brushing off me, and it's the carols that speak to my soul and put me in The Mood.
With Covid restrictions interfering, I miss it so deeply.

Hymns can often make me weep with no obvious emotion anyway. They release something unquantifiable inside.

Moonflower12 · 19/12/2021 21:49

With me it's Away in a Manger. It's a joke at the school where I teach, that I always end up singing it as a solo at the nativity as my little ones clam up!

My favourite is In the Bleak Midwinter. ( a bit outing)
My partner is called Midwinter and we only got back together after 20 years apart due to this carol.
Our DD was singing it at her school concert and sings the word 'Midwinter' very loudly as 'It's my name!'

Plump82 · 19/12/2021 21:50

@IHateCoronavirus

Me too, brass bands, carols and singing children (even if they’re shit). They get me every single time.
Oh i agree. Im a snotty mess when we watch The Nativity and the kids sing. It just makes me think of my lovely neices.
upinaballoon · 19/12/2021 21:54

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

I love most of the trad ones, when sung by proper choirs (not murdered by celebs). Away In A Manger especially can make me weepy, but also In The BleaK Midwinter, Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar, and plenty of others.
Someone at work asked me if I knew the words for "Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar", as she had sung that, possibly in a choir, at secondary school. This is several years ago, before we looked on Google for everything. As it happened I did have a book with it in. She died of cancer when she was 49, and when I hear "Three Kings" being beautifully sung on Classic FM I always think of it as 'her' carol.
SarahAndQuack · 19/12/2021 21:56

@SpikeDearheart

When I was heavily pregnant I sang A Spotless Rose at the nine lessons and carols service, which has the line "and in that rose contained was heaven and earth in little space", which resonated so strongly. I get a lump in my throat every time I hear it now.

Also the Coventry Carol, obviously.

That's so lovely.