Paul, if you want a blow-me-away religious Christmas song, I highly reccommend Johnny Cash’s rendition of “What Child Is This?” It’s amazing. And what’s more it includes all the words.
The second stanza is the one most often left out:
Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
Good Christians, fear, for sinners here
The silent Word is pleading.
Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
In case you’re interested, a short history: In 1865, William Chatterton Dix published “The Manger Throne.” Three stanzas were later culled from that poem and fitted to “Greensleeves,” a traditional English folk song, thus creating “What Child Is This?”
