Silent Night

words and music by Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber (Public Domain) • arrangement and verse 4 by Doug Howell (November 2019 – © Creative Measures LLC)

silent night, holy night
all is calm, all is bright
’round yon virgin mother and child
holy infant, so tender and mild
sleep in heavenly peace
sleep in heavenly peace

silent night, holy night
shepherds quake at the sight
glories stream from heaven afar
heavenly hosts sing alleluia:
Christ, the Savior, is born!
Christ, the Savior, is born!

…
Son of God, love’s pure light
radiant beams from your holy face
with the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord at your birth,
Jesus, Lord…
Jesus, my Lord!

silent night, holy night
sorrows flee, dreams take flight
lost and loved ones bending near
scenes of hope for the world appear
born of heavenly love
born of a heavenly love
born of your heavenly love

Reviews

I listened to ‘Silent Night’ with rapture and goosebumps. —David B.

Your own verse filled me with joy—no words of my own, nothing else needed to be said. Heavenly peace. —Lisa L.

Beautiful as always….and you have me thinking what my verse would be… —MaryEllen O.

Really nice. It does lend itself nicely to this meter when done so gently. (Love your added lyrics as well)….now you have me thinking of what my ‘new verse’ would be. —Katie C.

Thanks, Doug – what a great way to start the season of Advent. —Marilyn T.

Full of emotion. —Anna F.

Such a moving rendition. Thank you, Doug! —John K.

Thank you, Doug. Simply beautiful. —BJ L.

Love this…It is my favorite Christmas song and the love and feeling in this version were breathtaking. Thanks for the Christmas gift, Doug. —David L.

2019 Notes

When I released “The Love You Must Have Had” last November, I said that it was my only Christmas song. But I got to thinking as Christmas started to come up in our planning discussions a month or so ago that there are a few others I’ve thought about doing through the years. One idea that’s come up several times is a 4/4 version of “Silent Night” that I’ve played around with. So I pulled that idea out again, dusted off the cobwebs, and it started to take shape.

For me—like many of you, I’m sure—this is my very favorite Christmas carol. And as such, under normal circumstances it is probably the one that I’d least want to meddle with, as it is so simply sacred, just as it is. The thing was, for me the project started to mean a lot more than just “meddling.” As I told a friend recently: “I’ve always thought a good cover is a re-imagining of a song. In some ways it takes just as much creativity to think of a popular song in a new way. Some people build a foundation. Some people build on it…”

So I hope you’ll think of this as a personal take on my favorite Christmas carol. With great respect and thankfulness to Joseph Mohr and Franz Gruber, the carol’s authors, I’ve also shared a verse of my own. By the way, his original version had six verses. If you’ve never read the history of the song, you should take a look. It’s fascinating to read how this simple song, written for a particular occasion—accompanied on guitar because the organ broke down—somehow became the world’s best-known Christmas carol.

I lay awake several nights in a row, imagining the holy scene, and myself standing there. What would I have felt, and done? What was my response to the babe in the manger? What could I possibly have to say? What does his birth mean for me?

If I was to add a verse, I‘d want it to show exactly what this divine, eternal, world-changing, incarnational event, and the yearly commemoration of it, have meant in my own life. And not just in the past. If it’s an eternal event, it has to mean something now, too, in the middle of this world I live in, all fractured and selfish and racist, lie-ridden and poverty-stricken. This world I helped create. Is there hope for this world as well as that world long ago?

silent night, holy night
sorrows flee, dreams take flight
lost and loved ones bending near
scenes of hope for the world appear
born of heavenly love
born of a heavenly love
born of your heavenly love

The first three verses I’ve left untouched except for changing “thy” to “your,” etc. Those three verses lead to the only response I can possibly imagine: “Jesus, my Lord!”

As you celebrate Jesus’ birth this year, take a moment to consider: If you added a verse, what would yours say?

“Music and Meaning” Notes

From the very beginning, I envisioned the scene as a dynamic one, not just static, like a tableau, or a crèche to be brought out at Christmastime. And I—and you—are characters in the drama, not just onlookers. The slow drumbeat was always a part of it, too, moving the story along, taking on different meanings at different points in the road. For me, the song is a glimpse into an eternal procession, one with both origin and destination on the boundaries of eternity. Is it a dirge, leading to a cross; the accompaniment for a triumphal entry? One thing is certain: it’s a procession of love, the movement of a Creator reaching as far as necessary to redeem a humankind prone to wander. And at the moment we realize the vulnerable babe is our Lord, too, everything stops. Everything changes. And the procession begins again, but now a new pilgrim has joined the throng of worshipers—joined all those who’ve gone before, and all who will come after—all the “lost and loved ones.”

For the drumbeat, I used a couple different sizes of frame drums and a riq, all common for centuries in the Middle East.

A big thank you to Davey for singing beautiful background alleluias, and to James Willard Spencer for technical assistance.