{"id":15558,"date":"2015-12-20T14:50:16","date_gmt":"2015-12-20T14:50:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idea.membrane.com\/songwriter\/?p=15558"},"modified":"2015-12-25T14:54:48","modified_gmt":"2015-12-25T14:54:48","slug":"god-rest-ye-merry-gentlemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/2015\/12\/20\/god-rest-ye-merry-gentlemen\/","title":{"rendered":"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen \/ House of the Rising Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7k_Dorj22gM\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/danielle.membrane.com\/Daniel-Brouse\/Christmas-That-Time-Of-Year\/DR0000_2378-God-Rest-Ye-Rising-Sun-Mix.mp3\">God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen \/ House of the Rising Sun.mp3<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A song about the downtrodden and our hope, faith and charity.<\/p>\n<p>The first time I recorded a version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, I was just learning what the song meant. The time was right after 9\/11. As I started to look into the song, I found it was an Old English Carol about the <strong>downtrodden<\/strong>. Then, a new mate from England wrote me and said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Merry in the Old English of this carol did not mean &#8220;Happy&#8221; it meant &#8220;Mighty&#8221; or &#8220;Powerful&#8221; (Think Robin Hood&#8217;s Merry Men &#8211; They weren&#8217;t happy because they were wearing tights&#8230; you know&#8230; they were a powerful fighting unit) The word &#8220;Rest&#8221; in the Old English also meant to invest a property in&#8230; or in other words to &#8220;make&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>So the first line of the carol in modern English would be &#8220;God Make You Mighty Gentlemen&#8221; Similarly the term &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; means have a &#8220;Powerful&#8221; Christmas. Kind of gives the phrase a whole new meaning doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Since then, I started to learn about the song &#8220;House of the Rising Son&#8221;. It turns out this, also, may be an Old English Traditional song (that USA blues guys adapted.) Coincidentally, it is also a song about the <strong>downtrodden<\/strong>. Both songs are about redemption&#8230; faith, hope and charity.<\/p>\n<p>The video is a combination of man&#8217;s sins with God&#8217;s glory fading in and out.<\/p>\n<pre> Am              \r\nGod rest ye merry, gentlemen \r\n     F             E\r\nLet nothing you dismay \r\n Am\r\nRemember, Christ, our Saviour \r\n     F                 E       \r\nWas born on Christmas day \r\n    Dm                 C         \r\nTo save us all from Satan's power \r\n    Am                G\r\nWhen we were gone astray \r\n     C           E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy,\r\n             G\r\nComfort and joy \r\n     C           E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy \r\n\r\n  Am                         \r\nFrom God our Heavenly Father \r\n     F            E\r\nA blessed Angel came; \r\n  Am \r\nAnd unto certain Shepherds  \r\n         F               E\r\nBrought tidings of the same: \r\n     Dm             C\r\nHow that in Bethlehem was born \r\n     Am             G\r\nThe Son of God by Name. \r\n    C            E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy, \r\n             G\r\nComfort and joy \r\n    C            E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy \r\n\r\n\r\nAm\r\nAnd when they came to Bethlehem \r\n      F                 E\r\nWhere our dear Saviour lay, \r\n  Am\r\nThey found Him in a manger, \r\n      F             E\r\nWhere oxen feed on hay; \r\n     Dm                  C\r\nHis Mother Mary kneeling down, \r\n   Am               G\r\nUnto the Lord did pray. \r\n     C           E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy, \r\n             G\r\nComfort and joy \r\n     C           E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy \r\n\r\n\r\n  Am\r\nNow to the Lord sing praises, \r\n      F               E\r\nAll you within this place, \r\n  Am                   \r\nAnd with true love and brotherhood \r\n      F            E\r\nEach other now embrace; \r\n      Dm              C\r\nThis holy tide of Christmas \r\n     Am           G\r\nAll other doth deface. \r\n    C            E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy, \r\n             G\r\nComfort and joy \r\n     C           E        Am\r\nO tidings of comfort and joy\r\n<\/pre>\n<p>ABOUT THE SONG<br \/>\nStyle: ExperiMental Music<br \/>\nRecording: 4-track digital stereo<\/p>\n<p>Daniel &#8212; Vocals, Guitar, Keyboards, Synthesizers and an Alesis Vortex controller to Albeton software (microKorg, Yamaha PSR-740, Casio WK-3500, miniNova, and a couple pedals)<\/p>\n<p>From the album <a href=\"http:\/\/danielle.membrane.com\/Daniel-Brouse\/Christmas-That-Time-Of-Year\/\"><strong><em>That Time Of Year<\/em><\/strong><\/a><br \/>\nby <a href=\"\/\">Daniel Brouse<\/a><\/p>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/membrane.com\/xmas\/\">More from the Christmas Album<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen \/ House of the Rising Sun.mp3 A song about the downtrodden and our hope, faith and charity. The first time I recorded a version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, I was just learning what the song meant. The time was right after 9\/11. As I started to look into [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7,9,14],"tags":[52,156,198,269,272,312,2893,2971,539,546,556,563,613,998,720,2365,759,781,782,3326,3325,861,897,941],"class_list":["post-15558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chords","category-christmas-music","category-daniel","category-lyrics","tag-acoustic","tag-christmas-carol","tag-daniel-brouse","tag-experimental","tag-extemporaneous","tag-free","tag-holiday-music","tag-martin-guitar","tag-mp3","tag-mp4","tag-music","tag-music-videos","tag-original","tag-psychedelic","tag-rock","tag-rock-music","tag-singer","tag-songs","tag-songwriter","tag-streaming-music","tag-that-time-of-year","tag-traditional","tag-vocals","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15558"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15629,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15558\/revisions\/15629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kingarthur.com\/songwriter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}