Monday 3 December 2012

Day Two - Green Growth the Holly

This is another favourite of mine. The lyrics are a trip around the calendar year, starting and ending with the hope that evergreen trees promise in temperate climates - that spring will return and life be renewed.  The theology of the central line 'the God of life can never die' has in it a beautiful hint of the way English Christianity subverted and incorporated earlier local pagan theologies - this is the theology of Mithras, of Baldr the Beautiful and Herne the Hunter. It makes me even more gleeful therefore that this is attributed to Henry the Eighth, founder of the Church of England.

This is the original Renaissance arrangement - there's nothing I could do to improve it. Again, this was recorded in one take per part. I hope you enjoy it!

Creative Commons Licence
Green Growth the Holly by Jessie Holder is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

Please feel free to let me know in the comments if there's anything in particular you'd like to hear me doing as part of this project!


Green grow’th the holly
So doth the ivy
Though winter blasts blow na’er so high
Green grow’th the holly

Gay are the flowers
Hedgerows and ploughlands
The days grow longer in the sun
Soft fall the showers

Full gold the harvest
Grain for thy labor
With God must work for daily bread
Else, man, thou starvest

Fast fall the shed leaves
Russet and yellow
But resting buds are smug and safe
Where swung the dead leaves

Green grow’th the holly
So doth the ivy
The God of life can never die
Hope! Saith the holly
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4 comments:

  1. Anonymous3 December 2012 at 13:47

    Yay, I have comments working now that I am on a proper computer. :)

    I think the following are my favourite Christmas or Advent carols, and I would be delighted if any of them appealed to you:
    - Of the Father's Heart Begotten (the Furley Davis translation, which retains the mysticism and references to seers and sibyls)
    - It Came Upon the Midnight Clear (with Sullivan-borrowed tune and the references to 'age of gold' and 'prophet-bards', not the annoying version which erases the links with prior mythology).
    - In Dulce Jubilo

    The first two are also using imagery and claiming some level of continuity from other mythos/religions, and the latter has fun with macaronic text. :)

    I am also tempted to recommend Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar, because I've only ever heard it sung by tenor/bass voices, and it's awesome and that bugs me.

    (For reference, that's not supposed to be a 'do all of these' request, more a hope that out of four you might find one that you want to do.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Jessie Holder3 December 2012 at 14:10

      Hah, we clearly have musical taste in common - I was planning on doing all three of those first ones, and the only reason I wasn't planning on gender bending Three Kings from Persian Lands Afar was because I hadn't thought of it. Will see what I can do!

      Delete
    2. Unknown5 December 2012 at 03:09

      Ooooooh I'd like to officially put in a vote for genderbent Three Kings From Persian Lands Afar as well!

      Delete
    3. Anonymous8 December 2012 at 09:48

      Yay! It Came Upon a Midnight Clear is my favourite carol. I haven't done any singing for far too long.

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