# Melody of "Little Town of Bethlehem" different in UK than in US? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 15, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243 "2010-12-15T15:07:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/1 "2010-12-15T15:07:59Z")
This surprised me when I looked up the hymn in Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > Phillips Brooks (1835–1893), an Episcopal priest, Rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Philadelphia, was inspired when he was visiting the little town of Bethlehem in 1865. Three years later, he wrote the poem for his church and his organist, Lewis Redner, added the music. Redner’s tune, simply titled “St. Louis”, is the tune used most often for this carol in the United States. **Meanwhile, the English tune “Forest Green”, adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is the tune most often used for this carol in the United Kingdom and sometimes in the U.S. as well, especially in the Episcopal Church**. > **[O Little Town of Bethlehem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Little_Town_of_Bethlehem)** > > "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a Christmas carol. Based on an 1868 text written by Phillips Brooks, the carol is popular on both sides of the Atlantic, but to different tunes: in the United States and Canada, to "St. Louis" by Brooks' collaborator, Lewis Redner; and in the United Kingdom and Ireland to "Forest Green", a tune collected by Ralph Vaughan Williams and first published in the 1906 English Hymnal. > 1. O little town of Bethlehem >   How still we see thee lie: > Above thy deep and dreamles... I know that the music for hymns has, in the past, been much more mutable than it is today. On a recent visit to Sturbridge Village, the organist at the restored Church gave us demonstrations of hymns being sung with different music – they had separate books with the music and the lyrics, and could mix and match if the meter worked out\*. It has been pointed out in multiple threads here that you can sing “Oh Little Town of Bethlehem” to different music, often hilariously different ( like the version I heard sung to the tune of “House of the Rising Sun.”) But this is the first time that I heard the hymn was actually sung to different music on purpose and in a large portio n of the world. The Wikipedia article claims some Episcopalians do this, too, in the US. The ones i know don’t. So I have to ask – do any Dopers, in the UK or elsewhere, sing this to a different music than you hear in US movies or recordings? \*This, the organist explained, is why “Star Spangled Banner” is so unsingable. The song “To Anacreon in Heaven” was, I knew, a drinking song. But apparently they made these songs difficult to sing – with huge vocal ranges and the like – because they were sung in drinking competitions, and you wanted to trip up your opponents with something a drunkard would have difficulty with. If this is true, it’s not clear why we didn’t switch over to a more forgiving tune long ago. This site apparently gives the other tune: > **[Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem Sheet Music Print Piano, String Quartet](https://www.greatscores.com/Oh_Little_Town_Of_Bethlehem/sheet-music/1002424)** > > Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem Sheet Music, Phillips Brooks, Phillip Keveren Here’s the Sheet Music: [http://christmas-carol-music.org/SATB/OLittleTown\_Forest.html](http://christmas-carol-music.org/SATB/OLittleTown_Forest.html) ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/2 "2010-12-15T15:40:43Z")
I’ve never heard a different tune for “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” But, at some point in my youth, my church got new hymnals, and the melody they had for “Away In a Manger” was not the old familiar one (with all descending notes in the first line), but a different one. At first I was scandalized—that’s not the right tune!—but eventually I came to prefer this alternative tune, and to find the familiar one musically insipid. By which time the church had apparently decided that people wanted to sing the familiar tune, so they always went with that one. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Scud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Tom\_Scud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Scud)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/3 "2010-12-15T15:43:49Z")
I generally prefer the British tunes for O Little Town and Away in a Manger, but the American tune for It Came Upon a Midnight Clear blows the British one away. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/4 "2010-12-15T15:47:31Z")
Moved MPSIMS --\> Cafe Society. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/5 "2010-12-15T15:52:07Z")
Okay. Now it’s news to me that **Away in a Manger** and **It Came Upon a Midnight Clear** have different UK tunes, as well. I’ve never heard these alternate versions, or heard _of_ them. > [@](#): > > In 1850, Richard Storrs Willis, a composer who trained under Felix Mendelssohn, wrote the melody called “Carol.” This melody is most often set in the key of B-flat major in a six-eight time signature. “Carol” is the most widely known tune to the song in the United States.[1][3][4][5] > > In the United Kingdom the tune called “Noel”, which was adapted from an English melody in 1874 by Arthur Sullivan, is the usual accompaniment. This tune also appears as an alternate in The Hymnal 1982, the hymnal of the United States Episcopal Church.[6] > **[It Came Upon the Midnight Clear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Came_Upon_the_Midnight_Clear)** > > "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear", sometimes rendered as "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", is an 1849 poem and Christmas carol written by Edmund Sears, pastor of the Unitarian Church in Wayland, Massachusetts. In 1850, Sears' lyrics were set to "Carol", a tune written for the poem the same year at his request, by Richard Storrs Willis. This pairing remains the most popular in the United States, while in Commonwealth countries, the lyrics are set to "Noel", a later adaptation by Arthur Sullivan ... > [@](#): > > Murray’s tune, which is the tune most commonly printed in the U.S., is typically given the name “Mueller.” > > The tune “Cradle Song” was written by William J. Kirkpatrick for the musical Around the World with Christmas (1895). Kirkpatrick, like others before him, attributed the words to Luther. > > It is also sung to an adaptation of the melody originally composed in 1837 by Jonathan E. Spilman to Flow gently, sweet Afton. > > Thus, there are two different melodies for “Away In A Manger”. Each setting has a harmony version for S, A, T, B. > > Also, the two tunes actually fit together quite well. An arrangement by Christopher Erskine combining both settings (harmony), first heard in 1996 in Canberra at the annual pair of joint Carol Services in Manuka, performed by the choirs of St Paul’s Church (Anglican) and St Christopher’s Cathedral (Roman Catholic). In this version the Kirkpatrick setting is sung by one choir, and the Murray setting by the other choir, alternating through the first two verses. Both settings are sung together for the third verse. > **[Away in a Manger](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Away_In_a_Manger)** > > "Away in a Manger" is a Christmas carol first published in the late nineteenth century and used widely throughout the English-speaking world. In Britain, it is one of the most popular carols; a 1996 Gallup Poll ranked it joint second. Although it was long claimed to be the work of German religious reformer Martin Luther, the carol is now thought to be wholly American in origin. The two most common musical settings are by William J. Kirkpatrick (1895) and James Ramsey Murray (1887). > The popular... I’ve known things the other way around – tunes used for Christmas Carols and for non-carol songs – **What Child is This** is clearly **Greesleeves** , and **Oh, Christmas Tree** is the Civil War song **Maryland, My Maryland** , but I didn’t realize it worked the other way around. Are there any more of these multiple-tuned carols? ---
**Author:** ![Folacin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folacin/32/3195_2.png) [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/6 "2010-12-15T15:58:56Z")
I’ve sung “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” to two different melodies. > **[I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Heard_the_Bells_on_Christmas_Day#Versions)** > > "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem "Christmas Bells" by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that "hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men". After much anguish and despondency the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that "God is not dead, nor doth He sleep" and that there will ultimately be Joe ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/7 "2010-12-15T16:05:45Z")
Apparently the melody of Silent Night, while the same, was in a more upbeat tempo. And this is a surprise: > [@](#): > > The earliest well-known version of the music of the song was recorded by English scholar James O. Halliwell in 1842, and he published a version in 4th edition The Nursery Rhymes of England (1846), collected principally from ‘oral tradition’.[4] In the early 20th century, English composer Frederic Austin wrote an arrangement in which he added his melody from “Five gold rings” onwards,[5] which has since become standard. **The copyright to this arrangement was registered in 1909 and is still active by its owners, Novello & Co. Limited.** [6][7] > **[The Twelve Days of Christmas (song)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_%28song%29)** > > "The Twelve Days of Christmas" is an English Christmas carol and nursery rhyme. A classic example of a cumulative song, the lyrics detail a series of increasingly numerous gifts given to the speaker by their "true love" on each of the twelve days of Christmas (the twelve days that make up the Christmas season, starting with Christmas Day). The carol, whose words were first published in England in the late eighteenth century, has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 68. A large number of diffe "T... So the Standard melody for The Twelve Days of Christmas, like “Happy Birthday”, is _still under copyright_!! ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/8 "2010-12-15T16:12:21Z")
I wasn’t aware there was a different tune in the US. I only know one, and I know it as the tune of Little Town of Bethlehem (maybe it’s cribbed form another song, but if so I don’t know the other one, either). No idea if it’s the same as the tune you sing in the US. I’ve not seen (noticed) the song being sung in a US show or movie, so I’ve nothing to compare it to. And I’ve no idea how to describe it on a messageboard! AH - this is the song as I know it: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/36mnzBJgbEw/hqdefault.jpg "O Little Town Of Bethlehem (with words) - Christmas Carol - Pipe Organ") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36mnzBJgbEw) ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/9 "2010-12-15T16:19:30Z")
I think it’s well known among church musicians that there are different settings. It’s pretty common to ask “Forest Green or St. Louis?” when the director announces that you’re singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” (the different settings for “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” are, I think, less well known). I sing in a professional a capella choir that tends to do thematic concerts (and seasons). Two years ago we did an “Old World Christmas” which included all the British settings. Last year it was a “New World Christmas” where we sang the American settings. An amusing anecdote that our (British) director told our (American) choir: he grew up, of course, with the British settings. Upon coming to America, he found out that there are American versions of the two hymns. “Typical Americans,” he thought, “taking a perfectly good hymn and re-writing it.” Then he found out that the American versions were written first. Oops. **Candyman74** , [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8-hEmXNUTU&feature=related) is the American melody, sung (ironically) by the King’s Singers (with the typical British pronunciation of “Bethlehem”). ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/10 "2010-12-15T16:46:05Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I’ve never heard a different tune for “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” But, at some point in my youth, my church got new hymnals, and the melody they had for “Away In a Manger” was not the old familiar one (with all descending notes in the first line), but a different one. At first I was scandalized—that’s not the right tune!—but eventually I came to prefer this alternative tune, and to find the familiar one musically insipid. By which time the church had apparently decided that people wanted to sing the familiar tune, so they always went with that one. That’s exactly what happened with my parents’ church, too! Only now when I go for my annual Christmas Eve Contractual Agreement it’s a toss-up which one we get. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/11 "2010-12-15T16:49:50Z")
Episcopalian here - I’m familiar with _three_ tunes for “O Little Town” and at my church we do indeed sing the common English tune. I think both tunes are in the ECUSA 1983 Hymnal, but I’m not positive. I grew up mainly Baptist and it took some adjustment when I turned Episcoplian because quite a few hymns use different tunes, but I’ve gotten used to the Anglican way now. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/12 "2010-12-15T17:02:30Z")
I’m an American who lived in England for two years as a kid (think 7th and 8th grades), and there were definitely different melodies for “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Away In A Manger.” I prefer the British ones to this day. In fact, just last weekend I went to a [service of lessons and carols](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Lessons_and_Carols) with my dad and we were both happy to see that “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was going to use the Forest Green melody. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/13 "2010-12-15T17:19:12Z")
**Hark1 The Herald Angels Sing** > [@](#): > > In 1855, English musician William H. Cummings adapted Felix Mendelssohn’s secular music from Festgesang to fit the lyrics of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" written by Charles Wesley.[2] Wesley envisioned the song being sung to the same tune as his song Christ the Lord Is Risen Today[3], and in some hymnals, is included along with the more popular version. > **[Hark! The Herald Angels Sing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hark!_The_Herald_Angels_Sing)** > > "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is an English Christmas carol that first appeared in 1739 in the collection Hymns and Sacred Poems. The carol, based on Luke 2:8–14, tells of an angelic chorus singing praises to God. As it is known in the modern era, it features lyrical contributions from Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, two of the founding ministers of Methodism, with music adapted from "Vaterland, in deinen Gauen" of Felix Mendelssohn's cantata Festgesang (Gutenberg Cantata). > Wesley had w... ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/14 "2010-12-15T17:21:43Z")
The melodies to all of the following songs are interchangeable: Mickey Mouse Club Theme Song Stairway to Heaven House of the Rising Sun Yankee Doodle Pop Goes the Weasel Peaceful Easy Feeling I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing Yellow Rose of Texas Ghost Riders of the Sky Rocky Top Lion Sleeps Tonight Tangled Up in Blue Whiter Shade of Pale Light My Fire O Little Town of Bethlehem Jingle Bells God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen Greensleeves Jolly Old St. Nicholas The First Noel O Tannenbaum It Came Upon a Midnight Clear I’ll Be Home for Christmas Take Me Out to the Ball Game In-a-Gadda-da-Vida Marines’ Hymn Wabash Cannonball America the Beautiful The Internationale Onward Christian Soldiers Ode to Joy Mack the Knife A Hundred Bottles of Beer Clementine La Cucaracha Semper Paratus The Wearing of the Green (The Rising of the Moon) The Itsy-Bitsy Spider I’ve Been Working on the Railroad Sympathy for the Devil Rollin’ Down to Old Maui Acres of Clams Bread and Roses Sink the Bismarck Poems that apply: Jabberwocky Little Miss Muffet Jack and Jill Doctor Foster went to Gloucester Little Jack Horner Itsy Bitsy Spider Mary Mary Quite Contrary Anything by Emily Dickinson ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/15 "2010-12-15T17:26:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The melodies to all of the following songs are interchangeable: That’s interesting, but not relevant to this thread. There have been plenty of threads in the past about which song lyrics _could_ be sung to different tunes. This one is about Christmas Carols that are, as a regular practice, sung to completely different tunes among a large group of carolers. That I can sing O Little Town of Bethlehem to the Mickey Mouse Club theme is good for a laugh or a stunt, but it isn’t at all comparable to the fact that folks in the UK and various Episcopalian churches in the US sing that carol to a completely different tune than the one I know. a more reasonable addition would be to tell us if the same practice occurs in other English-speaking areas (Australia/ South Africa? New Zealand?) Or if this occurs in other languages. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/16 "2010-12-15T17:33:27Z")
Brit here, and after a bit of YouTubing I realise I’ve never heard the US version at all. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/17 "2010-12-15T17:35:11Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > > [@Sam\_A.Robrin](#): > > > > The melodies to all of the following songs are interchangeable: > > That’s interesting, but not relevant to this thread. It’s also not quite accurate: the _meters_ may be interchangeable, but the melodies are not. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/18 "2010-12-15T18:58:12Z")
I find that keeping the music the same, but changing the words (as in my post at 10:52) is called a **Contrafactum**. Song parodies by Mad magazine , Weird Al Yankovic, and the Capitol Steps are all _contrafacta_. As are _Maryland, my Maryland_ and _What Child is This_. > **[Contrafactum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contrafactum)** > > In vocal music, contrafactum (or contrafact, pl. contrafacta) is "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music". The earliest known examples of this procedure (sometimes referred to as ''adaptation'') date back to the 9th century used in connection with Gregorian chant. > Translations meant for singing are not usually intentional "substitution". Types of contrafacta that are wholesale substitution of a different text include the following: > An existing tune alre... I haven’t found a word for keeping the _lyrics_ the same but changing the _music_, though. Maybe there isn’t one. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/19 "2010-12-15T19:08:51Z")
**Angels from the Realms of Glory**. Not extremely popular any more, but one I know, at least in the US version: > [@](#): > > “Angels from the Realms of Glory” is a Christmas carol written by English poet James Montgomery.[1] It was first printed in the Sheffield Iris on Christmas Eve 1816, though it only began to be sung in churches after its 1825 reprinting in the Montgomery collection The Christian Psalmist and in the Religious Tract Society’s The Christmas Box or New Year’s Gift.[1] > > Before 1928, the hymn was sung to a variety of tunes, including “Regent Square”, “Lewes” by John Randall, and “Wildersmouth” or “Feniton Court” by Edward Hopkins.[1] In the United States, the hymn is today most commonly sung to the tune of “Regent Square” by Henry Smart.[1] In the United Kingdom, however, the hymn came to be sung to the French carol tune “Iris”[2] (Les anges dans nos campagnes, the tune used for “Angels We Have Heard on High”) after this setting was published in the Oxford Book of Carols[1], except that the “Gloria in excelsis Deo” refrain is sung in place of Montgomery’s original "Come and worship Christ the new-born King’ refrain. > **[Angels from the Realms of Glory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angels_from_the_Realms_of_Glory)** > > "Angels from the Realms of Glory" is a Christmas carol written by Scottish poet and hymnwriter James Montgomery, as an adaptation of the old French hymn Les Anges dans nos campagnes. It was first printed in the Sheffield Iris on Christmas Eve 1816, and then published as a hymn in Sheffield and Manchester in 1819. > By 1916, the hymn had been set to more than fifty different tunes, including "St. Werbergh's" by Samuel Webbe, "Tamworth" by Charles Lockhart, "Helmsley" by Thomas Oliver, "Greenville... **While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks** seems to have the most different musical versions of any “traditional” carol: > [@](#): > > It was set to music in 1812 in Harmonia Sacra. David Weyman’s adaptation of “Christmas”, taken from an aria in the 1728 opera Siroe by George Frideric Handel was arranged by Lowell Mason in 1821, and it is now this version which is most commonly used in the USA. In the United Kingdom and Canada the standard is the alternative arrangement using the music “Winchester Old”, originally from Este’s psalter, the Whole Book of Psalmes, from 1592 but arranged by William Henry Monk sometime before 1874. It has been set to numerous other tunes, most commonly “Martyrdom”, written by Hugh Wilson in 1800 but with an arrangement by Ralph E. Hudson from around 1885, and “Shackelford” by Frederick Henry Cheeswright from 1889. Parish organist at All Saints church, Oldham, Lancs., Robert Jackson, wrote a tune to “While Shepherds watched their flocks by night” in 1903 for the Westwood Moravian Church there. Called “Jackson’s Tune” it remains popular there. In Cornwall, England the carol is popularly sung to “Lyngham”, a tune usually associated with “O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing!” > **[While shepherds watched their flocks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/While_Shepherds_Watched_Their_Flocks)** > > "While shepherds watched their flocks" is a traditional Christmas carol describing the Annunciation to the Shepherds, with words attributed to Irish hymnist, lyricist and England's Poet Laureate Nahum Tate. It is listed as number 936 in the Roud Folk Song Index. > The exact date of Tate's composition is not known, but the words appeared in Tate and Nicholas Brady's 1700 supplement to their New Version of the Psalms of David of 1696. It was the only Christmas hymn authorised to be sung by the Angli... ---
**Author:** ![fachverwirrt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/94ad74/32.png) [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2010, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243/20 "2010-12-15T19:12:06Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > As are _Maryland, my Maryland_ and _What Child is This_. I think you mean “O Tannenbaum”. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/melody-of-little-town-of-bethlehem-different-in-uk-than-in-us/564243.md?page=2)