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Come All You True Good Christians

[ Roud 815 ; VWML CJS2/10/1289 ; GlosTrad Roud 815 ; trad.]

Cecil Sharp: English Folk-Carols (1911)

The Valley Folk sang the carol Come All You True Good Christians in 1968 on their Topic album of carols for all seasons, All Bells in Paradise. This and three other tracks from their album were reissued on the 1996 Topic Records sampler The Season Round. A.L. Lloyd noted on their original album:

Cecil Sharp took down this version (words and tune, not arrangement) in Gloucestershire [VWML CJS2/10/1289] . It too was current among Herefordshire gypsies early in this century, but its neat shape and hymnish tune—reminiscent of The Holly and the Ivy in some phrases—suggest it derives from country hymnody of the eighteenth century. Just the piece for the church gallery minstrels, with the blacksmith blurting away on the mellow serpent, the thatcher on the flute, and the tailor and the cobbler on the fiddle, to accompany the choirmen in their white smock-frocks.

Lyrics

The Valley Folk sing Come All You True Good Christians

Come all you true good Christians,
That liveth here on earth,
O salutate the morning
Of our Blessed Saviour’s birth.

Chorus (after each verse):
This is the happy morning!
This is the blessed morn!
To save us all from ruin
The Son of God was born.

Come, Christians all, behold the Lamb,
That on this day was born;
O come and praise His Holy Name
And usher in the morn.

Now to the Father, to the Son,
Be praise and glory giv’n;
Let saints on earth with angels join
The harmony of heaven.