God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

"God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen" is an English traditional Christmas carol. It is in the Roxburghe Collection (iii. 452), and is listed as no. 394 in the Roud Folk Song Index. It is also known as "Tidings of Comfort and Joy", and by other variant incipits.

History

An early version of this carol is found in an anonymous manuscript, dating from the 1650s.. At page 291, Brown notes that "the main part of the collection, that is, what is transcribed between pages 1 and 119, was put together in a few years in the early 1650s". It contains a slightly different version of the first line from that found in later texts, with the first line "Sit yo^w merry gentlemen" (also transcribed "Sit you merry gentlemen" and "Sit yo^u merry gentlemen").

The earliest known printed edition of the carol is in a broadsheet dated to c. 1760. A precisely datable reference to the carol is found in the November 1764 edition of the ''Monthly Review''.
Some sources claim that the carol dates as far back as the 16th century. Others date it later, to the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries.

Although there is a second tune known as 'Cornish', in print by 1833 and referred to as "the usual version" in the 1928 ''Oxford Book of Carols'', this version is seldom heard today. The better-known traditional English melody is in the minor mode; the earliest printed edition of the melody appears to be in a rondo arrangement for fortepiano by Samuel Wesley, which was already reviewed in 1815. Soon after, it appeared in a parody published in 1820 by William Hone. It had been associated with the carol since at least the mid-18th century, when it was recorded by James Nares in a hand-written manuscript under the title "The old Christmas Carol". Hone's version of the tune differs from the present melody in the third line: the full current melody was published by Chappell in 1855.

An article in the March 1824 issue of ''The Gentleman's Magazine'' complains that, in London, no Christmas carols are heard "excepting some croaking ballad-singer bawling out 'God rest you, merry gentlemen', or a like doggerel".
The carol is referred to in Charles Dickens' 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol''. It is also quoted in George Eliot's 1861 novel ''Silas Marner''.

Lyrics

The following version of the first verse is found in a manuscript dating from the early 1650s:

A later version is found in ''Three New Christmas Carols'', dated c. 1760. Its first verse reads:

The historic meaning of the phrase "God rest you merry" is 'may God grant you peace and happiness'; the Oxford English Dictionary records uses of this phrase from 1534 onwards. It appears in Shakespeare's 1599 play ''As You Like It''. However, ''merry'' is often misinterpreted as an adjective modifying ''gentlemen''. In ''Romeo and Juliet'', the servant who inadvertently invites them to Capulet's masqued ball twice tells Romeo and Benvolio, "Rest you merry." The transitive use of the verb ''rest'' in the sense "to keep, cause to continue, to remain" is typical of 16th- to 17th-century language. Etymonline.com notes that the first line "often is mispunctuated" as "God rest you, merry gentlemen" because in contemporary language, ''rest'' has lost its use "with a predicate adjective following and qualifying the object" (''Century Dictionary''). This is the case already in the 1775 variant, and is also reflected by Dickens's replacement of the verb ''rest'' by ''bless'' in ''A Christmas Carol''.

Some variants give the pronoun in the first line as '' ye'' instead of ''you'',"God Rest Ye, Merry Christians" in Mildred Gauntlett, ''Fifty Christmas Carols'' (London, 1906)
p. 39
!-- in this google books scan accidentally appended to M. Hawke, The Epwell Hunt; Or, Black Collars in the Rear (Three Poems), 1840-->
The use of ''ye'' may go back to alternative words written by Dinah Craik (1826–1887) given in Charles Lewis Hutchins, ''Carols Old and Carols New'' (Boston: Parish Choir, 1916) with the title ''God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen''. This particular version has the incipit ''God rest you merry, gentlemen'', but verses 2 and 3 begin ''God rest ye little children'' and ''God rest ye all good Christians'', respectively. in a pseudo-archaism. In fact, ''ye'' would never have been correct, because ''ye'' is a subjective (nominative) pronoun only, never an objective (accusative) pronoun.

A variant text was printed in 1775 in ''The Beauties of the Magazines, and Other Periodical Works, Selected for a Series of Years''. This text was reproduced from a song-sheet bought from a caroler in the street. This version is shown here alongside the version reported by W. B. Sandys (1833) and the version adopted by ''Carols for Choirs'' (OUP, 1961), which has become the ''de facto'' baseline reference in the UK.

Melody

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soprano = \relative c'

alto = \relative c'

tenor = \relative c

bass = \relative c

verse = \lyricmode

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Musical settings

*Gustav Holst includes the carol in his 1910 choral fantasy ''Christmas Day''.
*The third movement of Victor Hely-Hutchinson's ''Carol Symphony'' (1927) is a scherzo on the tune of ''God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen''.

Cover versions

American country singer Garth Brooks's version of the song, for the week ending 8 January 2000, peaked at number sixty-nine each on ''Billboard'' Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay. In 2002, American rock band Boston recorded a cover version which it titled "God Rest Ye Metal Gentlemen" and briefly made it available for download from the band's website; an updated version of that recording was released by the iTunes Store and various other music outlets on 10 December 2013, included on the band's Japanese limited-release Special Tour Edition of its album ''Life, Love & Hope'', and uploaded to the band's YouTube channel on 9 Mar 2015. For the week ending 7 January 2006, American contemporary Christian band MercyMe's version peaked at number thirty-four on Adult Contemporary, number nine on Hot Christian Songs, and number nine on Christian Airplay The version also peaked at number forty-nine on Christian Digital Song Sales for the week ending 17 December 2011. American smooth jazz gospel singer Tim Bowman's version peaked at number twenty-nine on Smooth Jazz Songs for the week ending 9 January 2010, the version's only week on the chart.

A version by the cast of ''Glee'' peaked at number 18 on ''Billboard'' Holiday Digital Songs for the week ending 4 December 2010. For the week ending 17 December 2011, American metalcore band August Burns Red's version peaked at number three on Hard Rock Digital Song Sales, number thirty-five on Rock Digital Song Sales, number one on Christian Digital Song Sales, and number thirty-four on Holiday Digital Song Sales. For the week ending 4 January 2014, the Canadian band Barenaked Ladies and singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan's version, included in the band's 2004 holiday album '' Barenaked for the Holidays'', charted as "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen / We Three Kings", peaking at number twenty-two on ''Billboard'' Holiday Digital Songs and number twenty-five on Hot Canadian Digital Song Sales. American a-capella band Pentatonix's version, included in ''A Pentatonix Christmas'' (2016) and the soundtrack of the 2018 animated film adaptation of ''The Grinch'', peaked at number seventy-three on ''Billboard'' Holiday 100 for the week ending 31 December 2016. For the week ending 3 January 2018, Christian band Tenth Avenue North and Christian singer Sarah Reeves's version peaked at number eleven on Christian AC Songs and number forty-four on Christian Airplay. Canadian duo Ali & Theo's version peaked at number twenty on the Canada AC for the week ending 28 December 2019.

See also

* List of Christmas carols

References

Further reading

*''The New Oxford Book of Carols'', ed. Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 527

{{DEFAULTSORT:God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
Christmas carols
18th-century hymns
Songs about Jesus