Lizzie Pridmore

Songwriter, fiddle player & archivist

While Shepherds Watched

Lots of sheep looking at you

An update to the Christmas Countdown

In December 2020, I embarked on a Christmas Countdown where each day featured a different version of the popular carol While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night. Five years on, here’s a brief update to the playlist as some of the recordings shared originally were no longer available online.

Feel free to bookmark the playlist for a Christmas gathering and see how long it takes people to work out that it’s the same lyrics every time…

Playlist on Youtube:

Here’s the list of tunes featured in the playlist:

  1. LYNGHAM. (A.K.A. ‘O for a thousand tongues’). One of my favourites and the one I’ve heard sung most often in Cornwall.
  2. SWEET CHIMING BELLS. In some renditions, the shepherds are told to ‘cheer up’ instead of to ‘fear not’.
  3. CHRISTMAS. Also known as: LUNENBURG and SIROE. The melody is by Handel from the opera Siroe and adapted by Samuel Arnold to fit the words.
  4. CRANBROOK (A.K.A. Ilkely Moor Baht’at). The Yorkshire tune! Or – I should say – one of the Yorkshire tunes, although not originally from Yorkshire. It was written by Thomas Clark, a cobbler from from Canterbury in 1805 but became better known as the tune to likely Moor Baht’at.
  5. PENTONVILLE. A popular tune from the Sheffield pub singing tradition, written by William Marsh of Canterbury.
  6. BOSCASTLE JACK. Another Cornish tune – this time spliced with the chorus of hymn written for a lost daughter in 1889: “We’ll Never Say Goodbye,” by John H. Tenney with lyrics by Anzentia Chapman.
  7. SHERBURNE. The shape note tune for While Shepherds Watched, written by Daniel Read.
  8. THE PROPER TRADITIONAL TUNE According to Ralph Vaughan Williams, who wrote in the Oxford Book of Carols: This carol, which is better known as a hymn because of its inclusion in all the hymnals, is here printed for the sake of the traditional tune proper to the words’. It’s rather like a major version of ‘God Rest You Merry Gentlemen’.
  9. LIVERPOOL. A jolly tune from the Sheffield carol tradition, not to be confused with the version of While Shepherds Watched collected by Lucy Broadwood in Liverpool, which is different…
  10. BELLMANS / BELLMAN’S SONG (A.K.A. THE MOON SHINES BRIGHT, or THE WAITS CAROL). A popular melody in the 19th century, printed in broadsides and found by song collectors throughout the midlands and the south of England.
  11. THE ARCHERS (A.K.A YOU CAN SING IT TO ANYTHING). The lyrics are in common meter so it fits with many tunes, including ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’, The Laughing Policeman, House of the Rising Sun, Yellow Submarine….
  12. PENDEEN. Another Cornish tune recorded by Hilary Coleman & Sally Burley while researching Hark! The Glad Sound of Cornish Carols.
  13. LYDIA (A.K.A ‘O for a thousand tongues’ – the tune that is not Lyngham!). Composed by Thomas Phillips (1735-1807), a brushmaker from Bristol. He seems to have been something of a one-hit wonder but for bonus listening here’s the Hilliard Ensemble singing one of his lesser-known works, Crows in a Cornfield (not wanting to spoil the plot but sample lyrics include: “don’t go there – why not? – You’ll be shot” – give it a whirl, it is quite funny: https://youtu.be/G_YDV13bM0U
  14. NO. 6. Another Yorkshire tune and one of my favourites.
  15. ZADOC. The Padstow tune.
  16. FOSTER/ OLD FOSTER (A.K.A. BURDETT). Another well-loved tune among the Sheffield carollers, written by John Foster, a county coroner from Ecclesfield.
  17. OTFORD. A Kentish tune credited to Michael Beesly (1700-ca.1758) though he also published a compilation of inharmonious hymn tunes (probably written by a variety of composers and including some of his own works) which led Nicholas Temperley to conclude that “Beesly … was not in control of his harmony, and did not know how his music would sound”! It would have been part of the West Gallery tradition – the church band of village musicians who would have played for congregations before the widespread introduction of the organ.
  18. HAIL CHIME ON. Another version from the Sheffield carol tradition.
  19. PEOPLE ARE STILL WRITING NEW TUNES. For the 2020 countdown I included one by Owain Parks and another by Craig Courtney.
  20. NEWLYN. Another Cornish tune, arranged by Richard John Maddern Williams.
  21. EXPECTATION (A.K.A. GRIMSBY, or O FOR A THOUSAND TONGUES (the tune that is not Lyngham or Lydia)). Written by S.L.Armitage and sung in Coal Aston and Foolow in Derbyshire.
  22. BETHLEHEM. Written by Gottfried Fink in 1842.
  23. EYTHORNE. Also composed by Thomas Clark, who wrote the tune CRANBOOK.
  24. FERN BANK. Another tune from the Sheffield carol tradition.
  25. OLD WINCHESTER / ESTE. You’ll know this one.

More tunes are available, including:

BOLINGEY (A.K.A. ST DAY, MOUNT ZION and WHAT MELODY) recorded by The Perraners on their 2011 album A seagull in a pear tree. While Shepherds fans can listen from around 2.50. https://youtu.be/1zx18FcY4VA?si=A1oDmf69GYiqWPtb&t=170

THE MIGHTY TRUMP (A.K.A LAST LOVELY MORNING). From the Derbyshire carol tradition and has the familiar lyrics interspersed with the chorus for an anonymously-written hymn tune ‘The Last Lovely Morning’. For more info you’ll need to buy The Derbyshire Book of Village Carols by Ian Russell. Sung here by Muldoon’s Picnic: https://on.soundcloud.com/rVIldSll9PkqnLpMhZ

AN OXFORDSHIRE TUNE collected by Cecil Sharpe from Charles Benfield: https://afolksongaweek.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/week-225-while-shepherds-watched/

BRADWELL (Derbyshire): https://soundcloud.com/user-807146348/shepherds-flock-bradwell

Credits

This countdown would have been much more difficult without the excellent resources of:

And of course, to all those who have liked, commented, enjoyed (or otherwise) and encouraged me as I prepared the original interminable journey shepherding tunes into a long list.

Lizzie

,