composer

Choir, Organ … and Two Salvation Army Cornets

When I’m not occupied as a researcher or a librarian, I’m the organist at Neilston Church of Scotland.  I’m not exactly a serious composer, but I do compose occasional Christmas carols, both lyrics and music. This year, because the church choir is few in numbers, I felt that a bit of instrumental backup would help. The Salvation Army band led Wednesday night’s carol service, so I politely requested two cornets to accompany me on the organ.  Wow! That certainly brightened things up.

By and large, the carol was well-received.  Although I sensed from one comment that I need to make next year’s effort more upbeat! Someone else thought it sounded Scottish. I suppose there IS a gapped scale in the verse part of the melody, though I didn’t set out to use a Scottish idiom!

Women at the Inn in Bethlehem

My composition was inspired by my thoughts that the traditional story focuses on men – shepherds and wise men – but there must have been women in the Inn. There must! In Biblical times, women didn’t generally have a high profile. Who helped Mary give birth in the stable? Hard to imagine that Joseph manfully rolled his sleeves up to help, if there were women around.

Neilston used to be a weaving village, so my allusions to the warp and weft of fabric are a gentle reference to the past of our locality.

So … here are the lyrics of my Christmas carol:-

1. By the flickering light, they were led to the stable,
   In Bethlehem simply by order of Rome;
   Did the swaddling bands come from the innkeeper’s wife,
   Kindly showing compassion to a girl far from home?
   CHORUS
   Oh, sing for the maidservant fetching the linen,
   Oh, sing for the woman who’d worked at her loom,
   Their linen scraps swaddling the Christ-child so helpless,
   With the Virgin young mother at the inn with no room.
2. Not the greatest of starts, in a stable so lowly,
   The carpenter’s wife cradling Jesus with care,
   Such a fragile young life, and dependent on strangers,
   With shepherds and kings paying homage right there.
   CHORUS
3. For that flickering light lit a life so amazing,
   His radiance the whole world could not fail to see,
   And the linen bands foretold the grave-clothes they gave Him,
   Before on the third day, rising triumphantly.
   CHORUS

4.   For the warp and the weft,
Careful hands moving deftly,
Made linen our Saviour to wrap and enfold,
As we pause to reflect how the humblest endeavours
Can be holy in ways that could scarce be foretold.
CHORUS

Link to choir rehearsing first verse and chorus

Cover Image by Melissa Manning from Pixabay