EDITOR’S NOTE: John Francis is the minister of worship at Parkway Baptist Church, St. Louis, and an adjunct professor of music and worship at Missouri Baptist University. He also produces a weekly podcast, titled “The Monday Morning Worship Leader.”
“Coventry Carol” is an odd little carol. Written by Robert Croo in the sixteenth century, it is found in less than twenty hymnals published within the last 100 years. In fact, to use a pun, it is almost as it were “sent to Coventry” as it evades our print hymnals (though it can be found on PraiseCharts.com and in many secular publications).
While the lyrics are less than ubiquitous in the local church, the melody appears time and time again over the Christmas holidays. In its haunting and timeless minor key, it has a lullaby effect on the listener. In fact, the verses are interspersed with a near nonsensical refrain, “Lully, lulla, thou little tiny child, by by lully lullay.” This refrain, similar to refrains such as, “Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la,” or “Fum, fum, fum,” were arguably the original characteristic of a “carol.” A “carol” would later become more of a genre category than a musical or poetic structure.
Perhaps it is this perceived repetitive gibberish that keeps these songs from more serious publications: like a hymnal. However the stanzas, refrain aside, are as serious as a song can get. It is the only popular Christmas song of note that recounts the terrible story of “the Massacre of the Innocents” (the death of all male children under the age of two) in the Nativity story – the very reason, Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus fled from Bethlehem. The lyrics are as follows:
“O sisters too, how may we do for to preserve this day. This poor youngling, for whom we do sing. By by, lully lullay?
“Herod the king, in his raging, charged he hath this day. His men of might, in his own sight, all young children to slay.
“That woe is me, poor child for thee, and ever morn and day. For thy parting neither say nor sing, by by, lully lullay!”
In these three stanzas, the first person (mother), mourns that she cannot sing a lullaby to the lost children. But she pleads with us never to forget these children and this horrible event. Fortunately, the story is preserved in Matt 2:16-18. However, as we mostly gravitate toward Luke’s telling of the Christmas story, it is often unmentioned.
We talk a lot about “the reason for the season.” But the Christmas story is a deeper and more complicated narrative than we often give it credit for. On another tragic turn of events, our society currently replicates this atrocity with our own “massacre” of the innocents. So while this carol is not gushing with tinsel, stars and wonder, I would encourage you to get it in front of your church this Christmas season: to fully remember the past, and gain resolve for the present, for a fully-orbed Christmas time of worship.