“Coventry Carol” by Deas Vail, Monday, December 13, 2021

A little over a month after their self-titled album was released, Deas Vail released a Christmas EP, titled For Shepherds & Kings. The EP contains four Christmas classic hymns, performed in a way that is true to Deas Vail's sound. Of the four Christmas songs included, I was least familiar with "Coventry Carol." I had heard it by other artists and it was on some of the Christmas CDs I grew up with, but it wasn't immediately identifiable. It wasn't in the Seventh-day Adventist hymnal like "O Come O Come Immanuel" or "What Child Is This?" and it hadn't been recorded by enough artists to make it recognizable.

HEROD, THE KING IS RAGING. "Coventry Carol" wasn't a standard Christmas Carol until 1940. From November 14 to 15, the Germans reigned terror upon city, and during the blitz Coventry cathedral was destroyed (pictured to the left). But on Christmas day, the BBC broadcasted a message from Coventry. Ending the broadcast, singers from the church assembled and sang "Coventry Carol," a hymn not common outside of the small English town. This message brought hope of resurrection for the war-torn nation. "Coventry Carol" is an old song coming from the early 16th century. It was sung as part of a "mystery play"--an old evangelistic drama acted out for illiterate peasants in the middle ages in order to teach them parts of the Bible they could not read. The song is based on a dark story in the second chapter in the Gospel of Matthew, in which Herod orders the "Massacre of the Innocents." After hearing from the Magi that the Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem, the jealous king orders all male children two years or younger to be slain.

ALL CHILDREN YOUNG, TO SLAY. The BBC podcast Soul Music tells several stories about musicians' experiences with this carol, but musician Ian Pittaway tells one particularly poignant story of his experience watching a recreation of the mystery play the hymn came from in the ruins of Coventry cathedral forty years after the bombing. After witnessing "The Massacre of the Innocents" depicted with baby dolls being stabbed with swords and red ribbons coming out of the dolls, the lighting goes dark and one female voice, representing one mother, begins singing a lullaby for her murdered child. Other voices join and the lights slowly begin to turn on again, the whole chapel fully lit by the end of the carol. This horrific Bible story is one I haven't spent much meditation on. The important point was always that the angel Gabriel came to Joseph in a dream, telling him to take Mary and their son Jesus to Egypt. And while it makes us feel good to think about the baby Jesus growing up safe and sound, for some of us Christmas can be a hard time. My heart is broken for the people who lost their lives, friends, families, and homes in the unseasonable tornado this weekend. Many are still getting sick and dying of Covid this year. Some are losing jobs due to the continuous downturn of the economy. Christmas won't be a joyous time for all. This morose lullaby may not offer us peace as it attempts to both recognize the grief of the mothers' losses. However, the major chord that the melody ends on aims to give us hope even when our situation seems most dire. 

Read “Coventry Carol” by Deas Vail on Genius.

Traditional:

Eden's Bridge version:

Pentatonics version:

Deas Vail version: