Traditional Christmas Carols

Christmas carols are popular songs written about Christmas or winter and are sung around the Christmas season. They are often religious in nature, commemorating the birth of Christ. These songs (or hymns) are often very old, having been written as early as the twelfth century, when St. Francis of Assisi began to introduce them as part of church services.

Traditional Christmas carols are very popular today and are frequently covered by popular recording artists, due in large part to the fact that no royalties are required to be paid to the composers or their estates, many of which are unknown. These are songs which are found in the Public Domain, a list of songs for which copyright permission does not need to be secured in order for them to be used. Traditional carols differ from what are often referred to as popular Christmas or Holiday songs, which do require securing legal copyright permission and require that appropriate royalties be paid to the appropriate composers/lyricists/songwriters or their estates.

The following a common list of 30 of the most popular Traditional Christmas Carols, with links to MP3 and CDs featuring many popular renditions. Most of these songs have been recorded hundreds of times over the years by numerous recording artists both in the USA and abroad.

Angels From The Realms Of Glory (1816)
The lyrics for this traditional English carol were written by James Montgomery and first appeared in print on Christmas Eve 1816 in Sheffielf Iris, a weeky newspaper published every Tuesday in Sheffield, England. Like many of the classic carols, the lyrics and the melody were not composed at the same time. The lyrics were sung to a variery of tunes, including Regent Square" and the French carol tune "Iris". (Source: The Oxford Book of Carols).

Angels We Have Heard On High (1862)
This carol is based on the traditional French carol 'Les Anges dans nos campagnes' ("Angels in our countryside"). The English version was written by James Chadwick in 1862. It is without a doubt one of the best known and most frequently sung holiday songs of all time, most commonly sung to the hymn "Gloria".

Away In A Manger (1885)
First published in 1885, this well known Christmas carol was set to "St. Kilda," commonly attributed to J.E. Clark. The authorship of the first two verses is unknown, but the third verse is often attributed to John McFarland circa 1904, but there is some doubt.

Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella (1553)
This is a French carol dates from the middle of the 16th century, first published in 1553, and translated into English in the 18th century. It was originally a dance song popular with the French nobility. It is still very popular in France, with children dressing up as shepherds and milkmaids to reenact the lyrical theme of the song, carrying with them torches, and singing on their way to midnight mass.

Carol Of The Bells (1916) This timeless Chirstmas carol was written Ukrainian composer Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych in 1916. It was first sung by a choral group in December of 1916 at Kiev University. It was first sung in the USA on October 5, 1921 at Carnegie Hall. It was adapted into the commonly known English version by Peter Wilhousky sometime in the 1930s.

Coventry Carol (1591)
This carol dates from the 16th century and first appeared as part of the play The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors. It was originally performed in the city of Coventry, England, hence the name.

Deck The Halls (1784)
This is an old traditional English yuletide carol often sung on Christmas and New Years'. The melody comes from a Welsh winter carol called Nos Galan. The familiar lyrics were composed in 1903 and are of American origin. The title of the song was originally Deck The Hall, with hallin the singular.

Ding Dong Merrily On High (15th century)
Like Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella, this carol began as a dance tune and dates back to the middle of the 16th century. The lyrics were written in the early 20th century and first appeared in print in the book The Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons, published in 1924 by Ratcliffe Woodward.

The First Noel (18th century)
This traditional English carol dates back to the mid 19th century. Authorship is unknown. It first appeared in print in Some Ancient Christmas Carols (1823) and Gilbert and Sandy's Christmas Carols (1833), edited by William B. Sandys and arranged, edited and with extra lyrics written by Davies Gilbert.

Go Tell It On The Mountain (1865)
This is an American gospel carol and African American spiritual written by John W. Work, circa 1865. This song became an important one in the civil rights movement, during which it was re-written to reflect the issues of the day. Civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer used this rewritten version of the song as an anthem during the mid-1960s.

Good King Wenceslas
This is a popular Christmas carol about a king who goes out to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (the second day of Christmas, December 26). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by the heat miraculously emanating from the king's footprints in the snow. The legend is based on life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907–935). The lyrics were written by John Mason Neale in the 19th century. The melody was adapted from a 13th century spring carol called Tempus Adest Floridum.

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
This traditional yuletide carol dates back to the 15th century and has been called the most loved of the early church carols. Authorship is unknown. It was first published in England in 1833 in a book of carols written by William B. Sandys entitled Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern (Source: Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (Stories Behind Books), by Ace Collins.

Hark! The Herald angels Sing!
This is a yuletide carol was written by Charles Wesley, brother of the famous preacher John Wesley, and Felix Mendelssohn around 1739. The lyrics were later altered by George Whitefield into the form we all know and love today. Wesley had originally envisioned lyrics to be sung to the tune of the popular Easter hym .

Here We Come A-Wassailing
This well known English carol refers to the practice of wassailing, an activity very much similar to modern caroling, where a group of singers go door to door singing Christmas Carols. Authorship is unknown. There are a number of lyrical variants to this carol, as is the case with most of the older ones.