News

Writing words as well as music

In the late summer of 2023 my thoughts turned to Christmas carols – for a choral composer virtually every day of the year is Christmas! I realised that I hadn’t had a new original carol performed since my setting of Welcome Yule was premiered in 2016. Maybe it was about time to write a new one?

I pondered what type of Christmas message I might try to communicate and what musical style might serve that message. I knew that I wanted to score the new carol for men’s voices in a style reminiscent of the King’s Singers in close harmony mode. So my thoughts turned to Joseph – why are there not many Christmas songs told from his point of view? I thought this idea might work and starting searching for suitable poems or texts that might reflect Joseph’s response to the remarkable birth of his son. I couldn’t find any suitable words so I took a deep breath and decided to write the words myself.

I’ve always had a great admiration for those composers who could craft both music and words, particularly in the sphere of musical theatre – Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser, Lionel Bart, Stephen Schwartz and, perhaps the greatest of them all, Stephen Sondheim. I’ve always enjoyed analysing and reflecting on great lyrics – Sondheim’s memoir Finishing the Hat gives some excellent insights into how he did it. Maybe it was now time to try to apply some of what I’d noticed and learned?

Describing the process of composition is always tricky as I generally do not remember clearly how the process proceeds – when you’re “in the flow” you tend to lose your sense of time and don’t form clear sequential memories of what you are doing. But I can remember the overall sequence of how I constructed the piece:

1. The opening musical figures and accompaniment style.
2. The lyrics of the first two lines of the verse.
3. A rough version of the whole verse tune.
4. The rest of the lyrics of verse 1.
5. The music of the middle eight, which turned into a middle sixteen.
6. The lyrics of verses 2 and 3.
7. The lyrics of the middle sixteen.

When constructing the lyrics I approached it like a logic problem – I wrote down what I wanted to say in free prose and then started to construct candidate phrases, lines or even just pairs of words, potentially useful rhymes and general turns of phrase that might be useful. Trying to write from Joseph’s point of view led to some other more practical thoughts such as:

• Walking from Nazareth to Bethlehem could take up to a week and Mary was heavily pregnant.
• After the birth Mary must have been exhausted.
• Maybe it’s now up to Joseph to calm his baby son and let his wife sleep?
• Joseph might reflect on the bright future that he wished for his son.
• The cavalcade of shepherds, wise men and angels must have seemed extraordinary and maybe rather alarming.

I was very grateful that David Ogden, conductor of Exultate Singers, agreed to perform the new piece. The tenors and basses of Exultate Singers gave a lovely first performance in St James Priory, Bristol on 9 December 2023. Here are the opening bars of the carol.

The lyrics for the premiere performance are these:

Joseph’s lullaby

1.‘Sleep, little baby, do not cry.’
Joseph sings softly his lullaby
Laid in the manger and wrapped in the hay,
lies his infant son, on his first day.
‘Your mother slumbers, so must we.
Rest now, my dear son, and sleep peacefully.’

2.‘Six days of walking brought us here;
Nowhere to stay but this barn so drear
Three local shepherds arrived to give praise
to my baby boy, my pride and joy.
Kings came with gifts from far away
Led by a star on this curious day.’

‘Jesus, I wish you Paradise;
Friendship and love, a life with no tears;
Radiant days of laughter and song,
Through all your long and happy years.’

3.‘What an amazing time it’s been:
So many wonderful sights we’ve seen!
Who would have thought it would turn out like this,
with bright angels singing songs of bliss?
Maybe you’ll have a family too…
Still, all my life, I will watch over you.
Sleep now, my dear son, and know we love you.’

So, I’ve managed – for the first time – to write the lyrics for a new choral piece. It was certainly a challenge and a real learning experience.

ADDENDUM: Revising the lyrics two years later…

In November 2025 I was asked for a fresh PDF copy of the song, which prompted me to review the score and reread the lyrics for the first time since its first performance. Three thoughts immediately struck me:

• I had rhymed ‘you’ with ‘you’ – not ideal!
  
• I described the angels singing praise as being ‘bright’. Is this a good adjective for an angel?
  
• I had written a fancy phrase to describe Joseph’s wish for lifelong happiness for his newborn son – ‘Jesus, I wish you Paradise’. On second glance, this phrase felt a bit loose and clumsy.

So I set out to revise the lyrics, which produce this new version of the text (changes in bold):

Joseph’s lullaby

1.‘Sleep, little baby, do not cry,’
Joseph sings softly his lullaby.
Laid in the manger and wrapped in the hay,
lies his infant son, on his first day.
‘Your mother slumbers and you should too.
Rest now, my dear son, and know we love you.’

2.‘Six days of walking brought us here;
Nowhere to stay but this barn so drear.
Three local shepherds arrived to give praise
to my baby boy, my pride and joy.
Kings came with offerings from far away,
led by a star on this curious day.’

‘May you be blessed with happiness,
friendship and love; a life with no tears;
Radiant days of laughter and song
through all your long and peaceful years.’

3.‘What an amazing time it’s been:
So many wonderful sights we’ve seen!
Who would have thought it would turn out like this,
with angelic choirs and songs of bliss?
Someday you might be a father too:
Still, I will guard you my whole life through.
Sleep now, my dear son, and know I love you.’

I hope that these adjusted words work a little better. I think that I have addressed the three shortcomings I mentioned earlier and also established a slightly better relationship between the endings of verse 1 and verse 3.

I have found tinkering with words much easier than tinkering with the music – I guess that polished words are not written, they are rewritten.