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!)