“For the Slave is Our Brother”
[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here]
One of my favorite Christmas carols is “O Holy Night,” especially when sung simply (for instance, I tend to dislike operatic renditions). But truthfully, I don’t think in my whole life I had more than the first verse. At midnight mass at my wife’s church (she is Catholic, I am not), they sang the third stanza, which has these startling words:
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
And a quick lookup on Wikipedia reveals that this was carol adapted from a French song, with essentially similar lyrics, written in French in 1847, and released in English in 1855—just five years before the American Civil War. It’s unclear how much this song was embraced in America prior to the Civil War, but certainly the goal of the writers was to condemn slavery, to their eternal credit.
Merry Christmas, ya’ll. From my family and assuredly the Patterico Family as well.
Update: From “AD” in the comments, Celtic Woman sing the carol:
[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]
A wonderful video of “O Holy Night” by the Celtic Women, over at Powerline.
AD-RtR/OS! (fb45ff) — 12/25/2010 @ 12:08 pmhttp://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2010/12/027977.php
That was as incredible a performance as I have ever heard! And the other songs they perform on the YouTube were just as amazing!
Merry Christmas! Semper Fi!!
reff (b43ea5) — 12/25/2010 @ 6:52 pmI sent this clip to a bunch of people last night!
daleyrocks (bfdac7) — 12/25/2010 @ 7:48 pmGet the Lou Rawls version (it’s on iTunes). He sings all of the verses and the song (though he changes the lyric to “everyone is our brother”) suits his voice very well. It’s my favorite version of the song. I like Jerry Vale’s version too, but he only sings the first verse.
JVW (4463d3) — 12/26/2010 @ 5:17 pmHere are the lyrics as translated by John Sullivan Dwight
Alan Kellogg (9fb1c3) — 12/27/2010 @ 1:06 am