Thank You!

Another Christmas Carol

After finding a secular theme for "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" I began to wonder what I could do with other famous carols and I found myself wondering about "Once in Royal David's City". A great theme that I had been considering while contemplating Mendelssohn's hymn was gratitude which I discarded when I found the theme of life itself but it seemed well suited to Henry Gauntlett's tune "Irby".

It was good to break the spell that leads one to think that Christmas carol tunes can only be used for Christmas. They are just music and can, of course, be used for any theme that fits their character. Mendelssohn was most helpful in breaking this spell when I discovered that that not only was the tune for "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" not written for Christmas, it wasn't even religious!

Gratitude

We are all dependant on an array of powers, events, environment and people for our health, happiness and even our life itself and it behoves us to remember that and to give thanks to those that have allowed us to be the people we are and live the life that we do.

Naturally the full list of people and things we need to thank is VERY large so I have not gone into the minutiae and have not covered everyone nor everything. I think that 5 verses is quite enough so I have just covered the main categories that occured to me.

Music: Henry John Gauntlett "Irby", (aka "Once in Royal David's City") 1849
Words: Warren Mars, 2022

Father Sol and Mother Arda; You have made all that we see.
Thank you for the plants and creatures. Thank you for the beach and sea.
Thank you for the hills and forests. Thank you for a place to be.

Thank you Mum and Dad for my life; You have made me who I am.
Thanks to friends who brought me laughter. Thanks to those that gave a damn.
Thanks to those who bought my freedom, those that helped me in a jam.

Thanks to artists of all strains; You brought to life the unseen land.
Thank you for the wondrous paintings, books that showed a vista grand.
Thank you for the special music, poems on which our language stands.

Thank you Engineers and Scientists; You have made our lives genteel.
Physicists who found laws of nature, Chemists that life's laws did reveal.
Mathematicians who made the language, Technologists who made it real.

Thanks to this body my mind inhabits, without whose health my life is naught.
Thanks for eating, sleeping, breathing and for all the battles you fought.
Thank you for the joy of movement, all the pleasures you have wrought.

The vocal score with chords is provided here.
I have also provided an SATB arrangement for choirs here.

Finally, I have provided a recording of my computer synthesizer playing the SATB arrangement. There is no singing and the synthesizer is very ordinary. Nevertheless the parts are all there and one can sing along with it or use it get an idea of how it should sound with your choir.