The Coventry Carol. Trad Arr.casetone2514

I have kept this as basic as possible in the hope that it will have an "authentic" feel to it - the uke puts the top hat on that desire, however!

This (despite it's name and modern usage) is not a Christmas Carol per se. Firstly it does not mention the Birth of Jesus, rather the Biblical events surrounding it. AND it was originally meant to be sung at Easter. WHAT?!??! It is (probably) 15th century in origin and part of the Coventry Mysteries - a series of "Passion Plays" performed around Easter to celebrate the life, death and ressurection of Christ.- this was the big opening number!

Most Christmas song pre-17th century were eradicated by the Puritans who were not big on jolly and happy so older Christmas songs are now rare. Ones like this probably survived because they sounded so miserable and fit well with the Purian ethos. Luckily those guys took off and founded the USA and left us to start enjoying ourselves again - so all the big hits like Angels We Have Heard, Hark The Herald, Good King Wenceslas, We Three Kings, God Rest Ye Merry and the like are all much later.

This song is often attributed (lyrically at least) to a chap by the name of Robert Croo, but it is more likely that he was a regular performer of the song and simply wrote it down. It didn't appear anywhere in print until 1591.

What was I saying? ..... Oh, yes! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

One more Christmas song (modern, this time) then back to normal service.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• coventry
• carol
• casetone2514
• ancient
• christmas
• music
• ukulele
• uke
• ukelele

[mctrmt]

Just perfect.

[casetone2514]

Thank you

[VSLive]

Loved it. Well done

[casetone2514]

Thanks very much

[casetone2514]

Sorry 'bout that - couldn't resist.

Plainsong is very cool and I quite like singing in Latin ( I was thinking of Adeste Fideles before coming up with the idea of doing pre 18th century carols) but I'm not sure how you could transfer the idea of a capella group singing in to a uke vid - i'll have to have a think..

Merry X

[UkePunk]

@casetone2514 yeah!!!

[casetone2514]

Take it off loop now or you will turn in to a Grinch!

Thanks very much Lisa

[casetone2514]

Come on you Gregorians...

Come on you Gregorians...

Come on you Gregorians...

Come on you Gregorians...

[casetone2514]

Thank you

[casetone2514]

Thanks very much JT