Back in the days before radio, or records, music was always live. You can imagine how that might limit your exposure to musical variety. Of course music could be written down and performed by different people, but still I’m sure people could only say they were familiar with a few “genres.” I guess everything that was written down is what we would call “classical.” Pretty much everything else would be folk music. There weren’t folk music artists (like Bon Iver or Mumford). No one knew who wrote the songs, but everyone knew the songs. Of course not everyone in the world knew the same songs, but the farther you went from home, the more the songs changed. If you came home from a journey and heard a song you were familiar with, then you knew you were close. Folk songs had to be easy to sing and everyone knew the words. If you sat at a campfire and started singing a folk song, everyone would start singing along with you. I think most of them survived for a long time as children’s songs. I’m sure I knew more when I was a child. “Row, Row, Row Your Boat,” “Yankee Doodle” or “Take Me Out to the Ball-Game” probably count. I don’t think there are very many songs that everyone could sing together anymore. Maybe there are a few from The Sound of Music. Maybe there are a few songs we all learned as kids: “The Alphabet Song,” but it’s just not the same if you know what I mean.
Hymns and Spirituals have held that place for a while. A hymnal was a collection of songs that everyone could sing. Of course the division became denominational rather than regional, but if you looked through a hymnal you could find a lot of songs that the people around you could easily join in singing with you. “Amazing Grace” has kept its place as a folk song since the golden era of hymns. Negro Spirituals were a brilliant update to hymns in certain regions. They tended to be even catchier, simpler and more repetitive so that they could be more easily sung without hymnals. Modern churches still keep some songs before the common-folk. Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, and Michael Gungor feed songs to churches around the country where they present to their congregations the kinds of songs that everyone can sing along to. The difficulty with them is that they change pretty quickly. Some churches are quicker to change than others (mine still sings hymns). Many times I’ve been with a group of friends, started strumming some simple chords on my guitar and people quickly pick up on the tune and help to sing it, even if we have to remind each other of some words.
The really cool thing about Christmas music is that everyone knows the same songs. There’s a particular canon of traditional Christmas songs that are known around the world. We only allow people to sing them for one twelfth of the year, which probably keeps them from wearing out to quickly. But think about this: you can start singing “Jingle Bells” or “Silent Night” in a mall or on the street with people who are nothing like you and they just might sing along. I think my favorite Christmas song is “Welcome to our World” by Chris Rice, it isn’t as universally known as a lot of songs, but it does a great job of making you feel the emotional impact of the Christmas story. I think there is a universal appeal in the Christmas story. If all I knew about “the baby Jesus” was that he was born in a manger and shepherds and kings gave him gifts, I might be confused. Actually, I’m pretty sure I was. I wondered, if Mary and Joseph are so poor, why don’t the kings give them more money and they won’t be poor anymore. How do people follow a star? And how do you know you’ve arrived if you’re following a star? Why did only a few people find out about the baby and get excited why didn’t other people get excited? Why did the king get so mad? Why did he think a baby from a poor family was a threat?
I think the juxtaposition of the impoverished with the noble and miraculous is what gives most people the warm fuzzies. Some of us know just how right they are. I’ve always thought Emmanuel was the best single word for it. God is with us. God is in man’s flesh. The noble has penetrated the ignoble. The holy has infiltrated the corrupt. The king is in disguise as a peasant. It’s sort of funny actually. His actual arrival was quiet. Only a few people came to the first Christmas party. Now we all make a big fuss and scurry around for a month making preparations and buying presents and throwing huge parties! But those first shepherds, they came because an army of angels told them how important it was. Why do we celebrate? If you have some spare time, leave a comment about some favorite singable songs and check out my post from December last year: Emmanuel.
