I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.

One of my very favorite Christmas Carols. When Longfellow wrote the lyrics the Civil War had been raging and Henry had experienced loss as had so many families at the time. It's a song with sadness and triumph and faith in God. I love John Gorka's version best.

A Place in the Choir - The Browns

 

I particularly like the Tommy Makem/Liam Clancy version of this gospel song, but I think I've already posted that one. In case I haven't, I'll put it down below.  Here are the browns with a more American gospel version. This song was a favorite with my Sabbath school primaries, juniors and earliteens. If I can scare up the recording they made for me,  I'll post it here too. It's a great campfire or kids song. It's fast and lots of lyric, so you'll have to practice a bit to deliver it.

This version (below) is by the guy that wrote the song - Bill Staines. Bill tells the story behind the song in this clip.

Here's a version by Celtic Thunder. These rowdy boys and girls have a lot of fun into this energetic version.

This is one of those songs people just make their own. Below is a recording that my kids from Tyler Sabbath School sent me so I wouldn't miss them so much after I moved far away - bless 'em!  My daughter Meg is on the guitar and leads. It's their own impromptu version. We used to add animal sounds when we sang it for church song service.

I'll have to put it in a video and post to Youtube to put it up here. It'll be a new something I have to learn, but a useful skill.

 

 

The Coloring Song

I love this Petra song. It's been a standard for youth song services where I've played. It's not hard to play and the words are quite lovely. My Primary Sabbath School kids requested The Coloring Song almost every week.  We even got a bunch of rhythm band instruments and they used to do this drumbeat/cymbals sort of thing in time with the song. It gave it a Celtic kind of sound. All we needed was for someone to learn the recorder line for the opening and chorus.

Tom