> The Watersons > Songs > Come All Ye Faithful Christians

Come All Ye Faithful Christians / Come All You Worthy Christian Men / Lazarus

[ Roud 815 ; Ballad Index ShH91 ; VWML COL/5/36D ; Wiltshire 653 , 918 ; Mudcat 70473 ; trad.]

The Valley Folk sang the carol Come All You Worthy Christian Men in 1968 on their Topic album of carols for all seasons, All Bells in Paradise. A.L. Lloyd noted:

One of the most popular of all nineteenth century carols, this, especially among farm labourers hoping for a handout around Christmas time, and relying on the sternly moral words to soften the hearts of better-off listeners. The grand tune of the present version was noted by W.P. Merrick in 1899 from a Sussex farmer, Henry Hills of Lodsworth. The tune has also served to carry a number of journalistic ballads, including a rousing account of the prizefight between Tom Sayers and John C. Heenan, the American heavyweight, in 1860. The singer is Stephen Heap.

The Watersons sang Come All Ye Faithful Christians in 1977 on their Topic album Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy. It was also included in the 1990 CD reissue of their 1965 album Frost and Fire.

A.L. Lloyd noted on the original album:

At one time this was among the most popular carols on the go, and even in the present century it has turned up in a wide area bounded by Devon, Sussex, Norfolk and Hereford. Its history is not easy to determine. Baring-Gould heard a version at Washfield, Devon, sung by a farm worker who had learnt it from an old fiddler at Tiverton in 1802, so we may take it that the words date from the eighteenth century at least. The root tune of all the numerous versions is the much-loved air variously known as Dives and Lazarus, Gilderoy, Maria Martin, and The Star of the County Down. It first appeared in print in 1719, in Pills to Purge Melancholy Vol. V, and it was by no means new then.

Heritage sang Come All Ye Worthy Christians in 1982 on their Plant Life album Living by the Air.

Andy Turner recorded this song as Lazarus in 2002 with Magpie Lane for their CD Six for Gold, and he sang it as the 2 December 2012 entry of his project A Folk Song a Week. He noted in his blog:

The carol is better known I think as Come All You Worthy Christian Men, while the editors of the Oxford Book of Carols gave it the title Job. This version is in the Francis Collinson collection, accessible via the EFDSS Full English archive. It was “collected from Mrs Lurcock of Bredgar, Kent, and noted down by Miss Alice Travers of Bredgar”. George Frampton, who first brought Collinson’s Kentish MSS to my attention, has the singer as Frances Lurcock, and I’ve no doubt he has done the research to back this up. Bredgar is a village just South of Sittingbourne; or, these days, just South of the M2 motorway.

I have collated the words with the version in the Oxford Book of Carols, which Sharp collected from Mrs Eliza Woodberry, of Ash Priors, Somerset.

Martin Graebe sang Come All Ye Worthy Christians in 2008 on his and Shan Graebe’s WildGoose album Dusty Diamonds. They noted:

SB-G Manuscript Ref. P2, 61 (144)

This song was collected by Cecil Sharp from John Dingle while he was visiting Sabine Baring-Gould at his home at Lewtrenchard in August 1904. Baring-Gould had heard Dingle sing the song ten years earlier. By that time Dingle was one of the few of Baring-Gould’s singers who was still alive. Sharp later walked over to John and Elizabeth Dingle’s cottage in the neighbouring parish of Coryton and it was during this visit that he took the photograph of the couple which Chris Molan has used as the basis for her painting on the CD cover.

This stirring Christian socialist anthem was recovered by several of the Victorian and Edwardian collectors, mainly in Southern England.

Lyrics

The Valley Folk sing Come All You Worthy Christian Men

Come all you worthy Christian men that dwell upon this land,
Don’t spend your time in rioting, remember you’re but man.
Be watchful for your latter end, be ready for your call.
There are many changes in this world, some rise while others fall.

Now, Job he was a patient man, the richest in the East;
When he was brought to poverty his sorrows soon increased.
He bore them all most patiently, From sin he did refrain;
He always trusted in the Lord and he soon got rich again.

Come all you worthy Christian men that are so very poor,
Remember how poor Lazarus lay at the rich man’s door
A-begging of the crumbs of bread that from his table fell.
The Scriptures do inform us all that in heaven he doth dwell.

The time, alas, it soon will come when parted we shall be;
But all the difference it will make is in joy and misery.
And we must give a strict account of great as well as small:
Believe me, now, dear Christian friends, that God will judge us all.

The Watersons sing Come All Ye Faithful Christians

Come all you faithful Christians that dwell within this land
That pass your time in rioting, remember that you are but man
Be watchful of your latter end, be ready when you’re called
There’s many changes in this world, some rise and then some fall

Remember Job, the patient man, the wise man of the east
He was brought down to poverty, his sorrows did increase
He bore them all most patiently, and never did repine
And always trusted in the Lord and soon got rich again

Come all you worthy Christians, that are so very poor
Remember how poor Lazarus lay at the rich man’s door
A-begging for the crumbs of bread that from his table fell
A little while and all is changed, he now in Heaven do dwell

Come all you worthy Christian men that wander through the town
That ask a lodging where to lie and then sleep on the down
There’s many rolls in riches bright, their glass it will run out
No riches we brought in this world, nor none can we take out

Acknowledgements

Transcribed from the singing of the Watersons by Garry Gillard.