We are used to hearing about, even if we don’t watch, the current trend of TV competitions: Strictly Come Dancing, The Apprentice, I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, Great British Bake Off, to name just a few. So today I offer you two modern Christmas songs to judge between. Categories to consider: singability, religious references, story-telling, theme relevant to the season.
When I was in hospital awaiting the birth of my oldest child in 1977, the hospital radio airwaves were playing, on repeat it seemed, When a Child is born sung by Johnny Mathis. The English lyrics were written by an Austrian but, according to Wikipedia the song does not actually make any specific reference to Christmas. And indeed it doesn’t, the child that the world is waiting for is:
.... one child
Black, white, yellow, no one knows
But a child that will grow up and turn tears to laughter
Hate to love, war to peace and everyone to everyone's neighbour
And misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten forever.
I would score that as high on singability; reasonable on religious references (love, peace, wiping away tears (Revelation 21:4) etc; excellent on story-telling and top marks on its relevance to the season: A tiny star lights up way up high… across the land, dawns a brand new morn.
Annie Lennox released a CD in 2010 featuring a track called Universal Child. She herself is a Christmas baby, born on December 25th 1954. Singability – very lilting but mostly unknown, so lowish; religious references (similar to When a Child – suffering, endurance) but with the addition of the innocent being punished for the sins of all:
And when I look into your eyes, so innocent and pure
I see the shadow of the things that you've had to endure
I see the tracks of every tear that ran right down your face
I see the hurt, I see the pain, I see the human race
Story-telling only marked as very good, as it is slightly more repetitious than When a Child and possibly too obscure for many to make links to Christmas as Christians celebrate it.
Both songs call a note of warning, that the good things are still held in abeyance:
It's all a dream, an illusion now, it must come true, sometime soon somehow sings Johnny Mathis (or, more recently) Boney M.
Ultimately, the competition is for each one of us to decide. Do modern songs have anything to offer modern congregations? We know that atheists and pagans profess to enjoy good traditional Christmas hymns or carols, which must mean these songs are sung with no engagement of heart or soul. Instead of sticking to traditional, which unfortunately in this regard means ‘mindless’ to many, could we challenge perceptions and introduce thinking into Christmas?
Let’s combine the thoughts of both these songs as we pray:
Loving Heavenly Father, may each newborn child grow up to make this world a better place and a closer place to the perfect world you created. Amen.
Elaine Kinchin
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