Let us all rejoice and sing! Presenting the second of our festive double bill, I Saw Three Ships. Below, Peter Bacon (Tenor) investigates the story behind the song.

While many of the songs in our repertoire come from half way across the world, this one might originate a little closer to home. The popular carol has traditional English origins which go back to the 17th century and possibly to Derbyshire. The more literal-minded will be perplexed by the idea of ships sailing into the land-locked Bethlehem. The three ships may be those which were said to transport the relics of the Biblical magi to Cologne Cathedral in the 12th century. Or perhaps it is a reference to the camels which bore the magi – the “ships of the desert”.

If the origins and lyrics are mysterious we’re on a surer footing when it comes to our arrangement of the carol. It definitely comes from the pen of Themba Mvula.
He explains: “It was one of those rare ideas that just came to me while I was out for a walk one night. As soon as I got home I sat down to notate it in case I forgot!”
I suggested the chords which rock back and forth in between the verses reminded me of minimalist music, but with an African twist.
“I’d quite happily take African Minimalism as a label if there is such a thing!” Themba replied. “I think somewhere in my head the chords sound almost like a ship in the distance.”

I Saw Three Ships appears in the Oxford Book Of Carols in an arrangement by Martin Shaw, and there are many recorded versions, ranging from a guitar interpretation by John Renbourn (once of the band Pentangle) to a perky vocal by Nat King Cole.

It has often featured in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast from King’s College Cambridge. Here it is from 2010:

We present our latest virtual choir performance, Coventry Carol. Below, Peter Bacon (Tenor) investigates the story behind the song.

The Coventry Carol can be traced back to the 16th century but it was probably sung even earlier than that as part of a medieval mystery play called The Pageant of the Shearman and Tailors, performed in Coventry by the sheep shearers and tailors of the town. The author of the words and the composer of the melody are unknown but the story it tells is of Herod’s command and the slaughter of the innocents as recounted in the Gospel of Matthew.

Although the song is now associated with Christmas, the mystery plays were generally performed in the summer. The beautiful melody and gentle lullaby of the opening verse, contrasting with the harsh cruelty of the third, is dramatically effective whatever time of year we hear it.

Its links with Coventry have remained strong ever since, and it was sung at a service broadcast throughout the British Empire on Christmas Day 1940 from the ruins of Coventry Cathedral, which had been bombed just six weeks before.

In addition to the countless versions of the Coventry Carol you may have heard sung by choirs, it has also been recorded by a wide variety of singers, including John Denver, Alfred Deller, Annie Lennox, The King’s Singers, Tori Amos, Sting, Maddy Prior, Jessye Norman, even Chas & Dave.

I came across this terrific version on YouTube, sung in Aramaic and “dedicated to all displaced children and in particular Assyrian children who have suffered the most by war and bloodshed in the Middle East”:

There is much more about Coventry Carol and its significance for people in the episode of BBC Radio 4’s programme Soul Music which was broadcast on Christmas Day last year. You can listen to it via this link (though, be warned, you may need a box of tissues handy!)

Peter Bacon (Tenor) investigates our repertoire. This month: Steal Away.

A classic American Negro Spiritual, Steal Away was composed by Wallace Willis, a slave, sometime before 1862. Alexander Reid, a minister, heard Willis singing it, transcribed the words and melody, and sent the music to the Jubilee Singers of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. The Fisk Jubilee Singers were formed in 1871 at a school for freed slaves in order to help save the school from being closed. The choir toured America in order to raise money, and even came to Europe where they performed for Queen Victoria (more here).

It is believed that songs like Steal Away and Wade In The Water had double meanings for the slaves who sang them. Not only did the words reflect their faith and that they would one day “steal away to Jesus” but also acted as code to their fellow workers that they were going to seek to escape their slave-owners, that they would “steal away” via the secret network called the Underground Railroad that would help them reach the northern U.S. states or Canada where they would be free.

One academic has suggested other lines in the song have this double meaning too. “He calls me by the thunder”, for example, refers to the fact that stealing away during a storm was safer because the rains washed away clues that might lead the trackers and their dogs to find the fleeing slave.

Steal Away has been recorded by gospel, rock, country, folk, classical and soul singers; the composer Michael Tippett chose it to form part of his oratorio A Child Of Our Time.

The arrangement we sing is by Colin Anderson, director of Town Hall Gospel Choir in Birmingham.

Hear the Fisk Jubilee Singers singing Steal Away just last year.

And there is an hour-long educational performance (including some other familiar songs) that the Fisk Jubilee Singers gave as part of the Kennedy Center Education Digital Learning programme here.