to insist that it is 'I love THEE' in Away in a Manger

[Balfe]

I have turned into one of those ancient teachers grouching in a corner but really, they're singing 'I love you Lord Jesus'.... It's got to be proper!

Ive been an infant teacher and the school pianist for 40years. I wonder how many of my pupils remember me insisting on kin not king and nigh not night!

Rancid I've always understood that we use 'thee' and 'thou' to make the connection to Jesus and God more 'personal', so thanks for pointing out the link to 'tu'!

Am not in the least religious but have grown up singing these carols for practically ever, and am unable now to sing any 'modern' versions. I 'thee and thou' away like a good 'un.

YADNBU OP.
A lot of places don't have a choir to do a descant though Pickle, so it is fully justified doing the traditional descant at this point. If there is 'an unaccompanied choir', that sounds more like something to listen too, not join in with. If a choir is singing along with the congregation, and holding 'Carols for Choirs' in their hand, then I feel justified in joining in too, as obviously they are singing the version knwon to all.

I find that having spent so many years having sung descants there are some christmas carols and hymns that i don't really know the main tune to. I did startle myself to discover i could still hit top A though when i'd forgotten where I was and accidentally drifted off onto the descant for Hark the Herald.

Also it's definitely, 'thee', 'yon virgin' and 'kin' although i only learned it was kin and not king a few years ago. I went to a catholic convent school and we sang more hymn like carols so rarely ever sang We wish you a merry christmas.

One of my favourites is The Angel Gabriel From Heaven Came, but ti's one of those songs that can sound terrible quite easily and there are rather a ot of words that children tend to mix up or mispronounce.

OP - YANBU at all.

I am an avowed atheist but I love singing carols

I'm not in the UK, so some of the carols are a bit different here, though at the shopping centre last weekend there was a really good choir singing lots of traditional British carols. When they sang the chorus to "Ding dong merrily on high", though, they sang "Hosanna in ex-SEL-sis". I was always taught to sing it "Hosanna in ex-CHEL-sis", though. Which way is right?

"It's "stay by my bedside 'til morning is nigh" isn't it?"

It has to be "side" or it doesn't fit the music.

A lot of the pronounciation of the Latin depends on whether you are a left footer or not.

@BertrandRussell how true

It has to be "side" or it doesn't fit the music

Bedside, 'til
Side, until

^ they both fit.

'The Angel Gabriel from Heaven came' - with the line 'most highly flavoured gravy'!

As a girl we always had to sing the descant, but as an alto with limited rang I sounded like a creaky for, although it worked when we pranked our music teacher by the Aldo's singing bass an the bass doing the alto lines in The Messiah

Most highly flavoured gravy is the official line, no?

Dominick the Italian Christmas donkey isn't the one who carries Mary, he helps Santa Claus bring presents to children in Italy "because the reindeer cannot climb" Italy's hills.

and if he doesn't do a good job they make him into the 'highly flavoured gravy' presumably?

I always wondered "Who is Molly Faithful?" and where on earth is she coming from?

I loved the three kings from Orientaar. It sounded a very exotic place indeed.

We learned "O come all ye faithfull" in latin at school and we were C of S. And they still learn 'Silent Night' in German for some reason!

The reason being that it is nice to learn a carol in its original language perhaps?

I still sing 'Good King Wensslas last looked out' because I'm convinced we were taught it that way

The OP is not BU. I like the school where they learnt some carols in their original language.

Storynanny - I'm sure lots of your pupils remember learning hymns with you. I'm 36 and have very strong, fond memories of hymn practice at primary school with the deputy head playing the piano and insisting on correct words and timing. Her pet hate was holding the S on words for too long. So if the line ended on the word 'Christmas' we spent an age practising singing 'Christmaaaaaaaas' instead of 'Christmassssssss!' If I ever hear a group of children singing a long s in a song I think of her! Same with the rhythm of songs. I can't think of examples now but I've heard people getting the rhythm of a line of a hymn wrong before and think they didn't have good enough hymn practices at their schools!

I'm torn on this one.

I remember at school we did all our reading, prayers and hymns in 17th century language and I think that is daft.

It scriptures are many centuries older than their translations so its not as if out of date English has any religious significance. If anything using archaic language defeats the object of using English at all which is for it to be understood by the masses.

I get that it has some literary significance but as a primary school kid you don't get that. It just means you don't understand what is going on.

On the one hand I think if it doesn't change the meaning of the song and it still fits with the tune, why not update the language so it is more easily understood.

I don't think it takes away from the tradition. Even though something being changed from how it was when you were a child doesn't seem right, it is still the same song.

But if those are the original words, I get why you wouldn't want to mess with a perfect piece of art.

As an atheist, for me the only good thing about religion is introducing people to wonderful, mysterious language. It doesn't matter if you don't understand all of it, the feeling of it helps to build a person. Shakespeare, A&M, The KJV, Yates, Dylan Thomas, Burns, Tennyson- they all should be background noise in your brain.

Modern language is hardly dumbing down.

Primary school children do get that if people take the time to explain. It would take seconds to explain to R/yr 1 children the meaning of the word ‘thee’.

At some point in KS 2 or definitely ks3 they are going to be exposed to text with more archaic language structures. It will be a lot easier if it’s been drip fed in from early years.

"When they sang the chorus to "Ding dong merrily on high", though, they sang "Hosanna in ex-SEL-sis". I was always taught to sing it "Hosanna in ex-CHEL-sis", though. Which way is right?"
I have no idea what's the correct Latin but when I was in choir we were taught to sing "in-eg-shels-is", because it's less harsh sounding.
I always liked the idea of little creatures called Hosanna or Deo sitting in egg shells.

The link somebody provided discusses the song "God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen", but surely it's God Rest Ye... because "ye" is plural while "you" is singular.

52
Probably.

I wasnt knocking it. We had fun learning it. These days kids do german in primary so its probably another reason to learn it.