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Ideas often spring from multiple influences.
The day after Thanksgiving 2012, I was stalking eagles, hawks, and
waterfowl in the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. At the same time,
my church choir was preparing music for Advent and Christmas. Somehow,
these activities inspired the verse above, which is intended to be sung
to the familiar Mendelssohn tune for “Hark! the herald angels sing.”
For what it’s worth, “Hark! the herald angels
sing” was originally penned by the prolific hymnist Charles Wesley,
though his version began “Hark, how all the welkin rings, / Glory to the
King of Kings!” Wesley associate George Whitefield is responsible for
changing that into the opening we have come to know.
My parody was written on December 4, 2012
and slightly revised on September 11, 2013. On December 6, 2025,
following a service of carols and secular Christmas songs, I decided to
revisit the poem. As originally written, the last stanza merely repeated
the first. Realizing that I could craft a replacement that made an
additional contribution to the overall imagery, I composed the final
stanza shown above. I also made changes to quotation marks to clarify
what is dialogue among angels and words addressed to observers below. I
also made minor changes to facilitate singing the words comfortably to
the traditional Mendelssohn tune.
— LED,
1/24/2013, rev. 12/6/2025 |
