An Albion Christmas

Home
A Dickens Christmas
A Lark Rise Christmas
Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
A Christmas Present From the Albion Band
Christmas Album : the Albion Band
An Albion Christmas
Winter Songs
Folk Rock For Good
Christmas Truce / Kerstbestand 1914
Household Words
A Garland Of Carols
All The Year Round
st agnes fountain
The Pickwick Papers. Chapter XXVIII
The Pickwick Papers. Chapter XXIX
The Pickwick Papers. Chapter XXX
A Christmas Tree
Once In Birmingham City
Edith Holden's Nature Notes
Carolling and Crumpets

An Albion Christmas
The Albion Christmas Band

Recorded at Woodworm Studios, Barford St Michael, Oxfordshire, in 2003
Engineer: Paul Smith
Design by Malcolm Holmes for Johnny Boy Productions

Musicians

Kellie While, vocals, acoustic guitar, percussion, keyboards;
Simon Care, melodeon, drum, morris dancing;
Ashley Hutchings, vocals, acoustic bass guitar;
Simon Nicol, vocals, acoustic guitar, tambourine

All tracks Trad. arr. The Albion Christmas Band, except
Track 5 John Tams (Mole Music)
Track 6 Simon Care (Copyright Control)
Track 8 Trad. / Kellie While (Copyright Control)
Tracks 12, 13 Sydney Carter (Essex Music)
Track 14 Jackson Browne (Swallow Turn Music)
Track 15 Trad. / Ashley Hutchings (Albino Music)
Track 17 Simon Care (Albino Music)

 Here We Come A-Wassailing
(Trad. Arr)
 

Here we come a-wassailing among the leaves so green,
Here we come a-wandering so fairly to be seen,
Now is winter-time strangers travel far and near,
And we wish you, send you a happy New Year.

Bud and blossom, bud and blossom, bud and bloom and bear,
So we may have plenty of cider all next year;
Apples are in capfuls are in bushel bags and all,
And there's cider running out of every gutter hole.

Down here in the muddy lane there sits an old red fox,
Starving and a-shivering and licking his old chops;
Bring us out your table and spread it if you please,
And give us hungry wassailers a bit of bread and cheese.

I've got a little purse and it's made of leather skin,
A little silver sixpence it would line it well within;
Now is winter-time; strangers travel far and near,
And we wish you, send you a happy New Year.

 The King
(Trad. Arr)
 
Joy, health, love and peace
Be all here in this place
By your leave we will sing
Concerning our king

Our king is well dressed
In the silks of the best
In ribbons so rare
No king can compare

We have travelled many miles
Over hedges and stiles
In search of our king
Unto you we bring

We have powder and shot
To conquer the lot
We have cannon and ball
To conquer them all

Old Christmas is past
Twelve tide is the last
And we bid you adieu
Great joy to the new

Two Songs by Sydney Carter (1915-2004)

 Julian of Norwich
 
Loud are the bells of Norwich
And the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian
I tell them what I know.
 
(Chorus)
Ring out, bells of Norwich
And let the winter come and go,
All shall be well again I know
 
Love like a yellow daffodil
Is coming through the snow
Love like a yellow daffodil
Is Lord of all I know
 
(Chorus)
 
Ring for the yellow daffodil
The flower in the snow,
Ring for the yellow daffodil
And tell them what I know.
 
(Chorus)
Ring out, bells of Norwich
And let the winter come and go,
All shall be well again I know.
All shall be well I'm telling you,
Let the winter come and go.
All shall be well again I know

 Come, Love, Carolling
 
(Chorus)
Come, love carolling along in me!
Come, love carolling along in me!
All the while, wherever I may me,
I carry the maker of the world in me.
 
Lifting and loving you that I am not,
Though your body is my bone and blood,
I wonder at the maker who can be
Before I am and yet a child of me
.
 
(Chorus)
 
I lift and I carry you to Bethlehem,
I lift and I carry you to Galilee
I'll carry you wherever I may be,
I carry the maker of the world in me.
 
(Chorus)
 
In the beginning you were there, I know,
And you will carry me wherever I go.
I'll carry you wherever I may be,
I carry the maker of the world in me.
 
(Chorus 4x)

Heckmondwike,West Yorkshire in winter

An Albion Christmas 2003 [click for larger image]
Talking Elephant TECD060. CD, UK, November 2003

On Christmas Night All Christians Sing (2:52)

Somerset Wassail (2:47)

Gloucester Wassail (3:17)

Here We Come A-Wassailing (2:37)

Snow Falls (5:33)
(featuring a poem by John Clare)

The Advent Polka / Saint Nick's Brawl (1:54)

My Father Played the Melodeon (2:04)
(poem by Patrick Kavanagh)

Rejoice and Be Merry (3:29)

Sir Roger De Coverly (1:27)

The Wren Song (2:15)

The King (2:28)

Julian of Norwich (3:06)

Come Love Carolling (2:31)

Rebel Jesus (4:53)

Little Johnny England (3:57)
(featuring an account of Cecil Sharp collecting his first morris dance)

Sweet Chiming Bells (4:14)

Bell Tower Polka (1:36)

Lovely in the Dances LP 1981 CD 1997
Plant Life Records PLR 032 (LP, August 1981)

related internet links

Regional and historical carols
and songs from midwinter traditions
includes another arrangement
of The Gloucester Wassail.
from
Coope, Boyes & Simpson,
Fi Fraser, Jo Freya and
Georgina Boyes.
Coop Boyes and Simpson
have appeared on a number
of Ashley Hutchings' albums
 
 
musician, radio presenter,
the alchemist of electric morris,
The Guv'nor

1342-ca. 1416
medieval religious mystic
and anchorite
 

Sydney Carter's most
famous song.
 it was composed in 1963
many people believe it's
old because it's a
hymn they sang at school
and no...it's not Celtic.
 
 
 Wassailing
has been associated with
Christmas and New Year
as far back as the 1400s
and earlier.
this from the
Christmas in England
webpages, created by
Tonbridge, Kent, UK,
and is part of an incredibly
comprehensive and very interesting
 website.
Well Done!

a link related to the
song The King.
describing the hunting of
the wren
 

Sydney Carter 1915 - 2004
.

albionchristmas.jpg

The Albion Christmas
Website
is ©2004/2005/2006/2007.
All Rights Reserved