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The Truth Sent From Above

[ Roud 2109 ; Ballad Index Leath196 ; DT TRUABOVE ; trad.]

Shirley Collins sang This Is the Truth Sent From Above in 1957 on a live Christmas Day broadcast on BBC Radio. This programme was published in 2000 on the Rounder CD Sing Christmas and the Turn of the Year.

Heather Wood sang the traditional carol The Truth Sent From Above in 1966 on the Young Tradition’s eponymous first album, The Young Tradition. The album’s liner notes commented:

This is a traditional carol, collected in 1909 by Vaughan Williams from Mr. W. Jenkins, of King’s Pyon, Herefordshire. The tune is in the Dorian mode, and has affinities with several others, including Searching for Lambs. In 1823 it appeared in Hone’s list of carols. Heather learned it at school.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sang The Truth From Above in 1977 on their Front Hall album Nowell Sing We Clear. Nowell Sing We Clear also sang it in 2000 on their Golden Hind album Just Say Nowell. They noted:

This is the text and tune from the Oxford Book of Carols [#68] edited by Percy Dearmer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Martin Shaw (Oxford University Press, 1928). The setting is from Vaughan Williams.

Jacqui McShee sang The Truth From Above in 1980 on the John Renbourn Group’s Transatlantic album The Enchanted Garden. John Renbourn noted:

This is a setting of a traditional English carol from Herefordshire and, like a number of other English folk tunes, it is in 5/4 time throughout. The best known arrangement of this carol is in Vaughan Williams’ Eight Traditional English Carols, a different version of the same song appears in Sharp’s English Folk-Carols.

A live recording of Maddy Prior and The Carnival Band singing This Is the Truth from their December 1997 Christmas Tour is on their CD Carols at Christmas.

The New Scorpion Band sang The Truth Sent From Above in 2001 on their CD The Carnal and the Crane. They noted:

During the summer of 1909, Ralph Vaughan Williams received an invitation from the Herefordshire folklorist Ella Mary Leather to assist in her local researches. The result was a marvellously fertile period of song collecting, which produced several classics of the English folk song repertoire, including several carols. Two of these, The Carnal and the Crane and The Truth Sent From Above, appear on this recording. This very beautiful melody, somewhat reminiscent of plainchant, was collected from Mr W Jenkins in the village of King’s Pyon, near Weobley, about twelve miles northwest of Hereford. A sixteen-verse version of the text was printed in A Good Christmas Box in 1847. Vaughan Williams’ choral arrangement, now regularly performed in Christmas carol services, appeared in Twelve Traditional Carols from Herefordshire in 1920. This is our own three-part setting of the tune, sung unaccompanied by Tim [Laycock], Brian [Gulland] and Robin [Jeffrey].

Magpie Lane sang This Is the Truth Sent From Above in 2006 on their CD of carols, songs and tunes for the Christmas Season, Knock at the Knocker, Ring at the Bell. Andy Turner sang it solo as the 17 December 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. He also included a Magpie Lane version recorded at the Roman Catholic Church of St. Dunstan, Woking, on 8 December 2012. He noted in his blog:

I got this—and a number of other goodies—on a carol-collecting expedition to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library ten or so years ago. I had the song from Cecil Sharp’s Folk Tunes MS. He noted it down in October 1911 from seventy-one year old Samuel Bradley and seventy year old Seth Vandrell at Lilleshall in Shropshire. His notes in the MS say “Always sung to this tune. Learned many years ago.”

Sharp published this carol, and at least a couple of others noted on the same 1911 collecting trip, in his English Folk-Carols—and he can’t have wasted any time preparing these songs for inclusion since the book was published late the same year.

Joglaresa sang The Truth Sent From Above on their 2009 album of Irish and English songs of Wintertide, In Hoary Winter’s Night.

Kerfuffle sang The Truth From Above in 2009 on their Midwinter album Lighten the Dark.

Nadia Birkenstock, Ryan Murphy, Jürgen Treyz and Gudrun Walther played the tune of The Truth From Above on their 2012 album Celtic Christmas.

Tan Yows sang The Truth Sent From Above on their 2014 album Eweltide Bleatings.

Lyrics

Heather Wood sings The Truth Sent From Above

This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love.
Therefore don’t turn me from your door
But hearken all both rich and poor.

The first thing that I do relate
Is that God did man create.
The next thing which to you I’ll tell
Woman was made with man to dwell.

And after that, ’twas God’s own choice
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain from evil free
Except they ate of such a tree.

But they did eat, which was a sin,
And so their ruin did begin,
Ruined themselves, both you and me,
And all of their posterity.

So we were heirs to endless woes
Till God the Lord did interpose.
And so a promise soon did run
That he would redeem us by his son.

John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing The Truth From Above

This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love.
Therefore don’t turn me from your door
But hearken well both rich and poor.

The first thing which I do relate
Is that God did man create.
The next thing which to you I’ll tell
Woman was made with man to dwell.

And after that, ’twas God’s own choice
To place them both in Paradise,
There to remain of evil free
Except they ate of such a tree.

But they did eat, which was a sin,
And so their ruin did begin,
Ruined themselves, both you and me,
And all of their posterity.

Thus we were heirs to endless woes
Till God the Lord did interpose.
And so a promise soon did run
That He would redeem us by His Son.

And at that season of the year
Our blest Redeemer did appear.
He here did live and here did preach
And many thousand He did teach.

Thus He in love to us behaved
To show us how we must be saved.
And if you want to know the way
Be pleased to hear what he did say.

Maddy Prior sings This Is the Truth

This is the truth sent from above,
The truth of God, the God of love.
Therefore don’t turn me from your door
But hearken all both rich and poor.

Thus we were heirs to endless woes
Till God the Lord did interpose
And so a promise soon did run
That he would redeem us by his son.

And at that season of the year
Our blest redeemer did appear
And here did live and here did preach
And many thousands he did teach.

Thus he in love to us behaved
To show us how we must be saved
And if you want to know the way
Be pleased to hear what he did say.