Hark! The Herald Angels Sing is definitely in what you might describe as the Motörhead category. Some carols were clearly intended to create a contemplative space in which we are invited to consider the wonder of the Nativity, others were just designed to be belted out at maximum volume. The most popular latter-day melody, first used in the 19th century, is incredibly beautiful, lending itself to modern interpretations by indie bands and Enya alike. Possibly the oldest carol here, with its roots in eighth- or ninth-century monastic singing, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel is, strictly speaking, an Advent hymn that’s been co-opted for Christmas. Oh, how lovely and, just out of interest, did you keep the receipt? 11. We Three Kings (1857)Ī winning combination of sombre verses with a big old chorus, and intrigue provided by the arrival in verse four of Balthazar, whose explanation of his gift seems only to make matters worse: “Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume breathes a life of gathering gloom”.

Regularly incorrectly punctuated – “God rest you merry” is a Shakespearean phrase meaning “God grant you happiness” – and these days performed with two verses excised (they just bang on about shepherds, we’re not missing much), God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen is cheery and induces a warm glow, despite the complaints of an 1820s journalist, who called it “doggerel”. The tune, a dependable source of bountiful good cheer, repurposes a 13th-century Easter carol. If anything, the hagiography of Good King Wenceslas dials the story down a bit: in some accounts, Saint Wenceslas was out in the snow, barefoot, every night as an act of penance. The lyrics are a bit showy – their author, George Ratcliffe Woodward, apparently “delighted in archaic poetry”, which rather suggests he was the kind of person who uses the word “methinks” in every day conversation – but no matter: the melismatic “gloria” provides suitable euphoria. This is a secular tune, from a 16th-century book of French dances, repurposed. But banish the spectre of Alan Partridge playing the latter in his car: Gaudete is powerful and faintly ominous. Not really a Christmas service singalong – lyrics in Latin presumably being beyond the tipsier attenders of midnight mass – Gaudete is best-known today in Steeleye Span’s 1973 hit a cappella version.

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