There are always plenty of ideas just floating around in the air of my songmaker’s workshop, some have been there for years and others may have just shown up an hour ago. Every now and then I wander in to find that a couple of them have buddied up and want to try a little covalent bonding. And sometimes it’s easy to see that two ideas were just made for each other, and you can almost imagine them spotting one another across a crowded room as the band strikes up Some enchanted evening…
I had been thinking for some time about taking another swing at writing a sort of traditional kind of Christmas song; creating a song that might feel right at home if you snuck it into the canon of familiar carols. Hard to define, really, what it is that makes a song have that kind of feel. The familiar favorites that come around again every year all come from such different cultural traditions and even from different time periods, some fairly modern and some of them going back centuries. I hadn’t written anything like that in a while and it seemed like it might be time.
And recently it had occurred to me that I might find an Advent song if I spent a little time hanging out with Isaiah in chapter 9. So while I was busy excavating treasures in Isaiah, that idea about a traditional style song tapped me on the shoulder and expressed an interest in participating. So I got the two together and they hit it right off.
I knew from the outset that I wanted a key element of this song to be a sense of time, so I started working on a guitar part that would capture a feeling of patient anticipation. As the words began to find their places, I discovered that the first two lines of each verse would set the story in the quiet and stillness and dormancy of winter. The third line of each verse describes a candlelit procession that starts in the first verse with one alone at the window and culminates in the fourth verse with many processing together. Each verse ends by explaining For to us a child will be born, and the refrain tells us who this much anticipated child will be. As the guitar plays on we continue down this quiet country lane bearing our candles and singing No-o-oel, No-o-oel, No-o-o-o-oel…
For to Us a Child Will Be Born
words and music © Garrison Doles
from his CD Songmaker’s Christmas
1.
O the nights have grown long in the deepening winter
The gray of the sky giving way to the dark
So I light a candle and wait by the window
For to us
A child will be born
2.
O the measure of winter is stately and somber
The drifting of snow at the foot of a tree
I wait at the end of my lane with a candle
For to us
A child will be born
refrain
He will be called
Wonderful Counselor
He will be called
Prince of Peace
No-o-oel
No-o-oel
No-o-o-o-oel
3.
O the longing of winter is poignant and wakeful
The silence that beds in mysterious hush
We bring our candles abiding together
For to us
A child will be born
4.
O the vigil of winter is still and untroubled
The slumbering world in linens of snow
We bear our candles in watchful procession
For to us
A child will be born
repeat refrain
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