This rendition is performed by one of my favorite artists, Loreena McKennitt. It captures a certain primality I've always associated with early music. It was this song, first heard and played on the piano when I was five or six years old, that ignited my love for medieval and renaissance music--and I didn't even know why I liked it so much. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (while neither medieval nor renaissance, but more likely from the mid-18th c.) remained my very favorite Christmas song into my twenties, when I added two more to the list--both period pieces, as well. By that time I was able to discern what it was that I liked about my music, but the bottom line is that these songs strike a very deep, erm, chord within me. They will always stir my soul.
Yuletide Blessings to All.
Let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.
O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy;
O tidings of comfort and joy!
From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed angel came
And unto certain shepherdsBrought tidings of the same
How in that Bethlehem was born
The son of God by name
"Fear not," then said the angel
"Let nothing you affright
This day is born a saviour
Of a pure virgin bright
To free all those who trust in him
From Satan's pow'r and might"
The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind
And went to Bethlehem straightaway
This blessed babe to find
But when to Bethlehem they came
Whereat this infant lay
They found him in a manger
Where oxen feed on hay
His mother Mary kneeling
Unto the Lord did pray
Now to the Lord sing praises
All you within this place
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace
This holy tide of Christmas
All others doth deface
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