O Little Town

 

A few weeks ago, probably during Advent, our congregation was singing O Little Town of Bethlehem. I noticed there is a phrase of music in the third line that is lacking some of the harmony that is present in the rest of the song.  As you sing it, you arrive at this section, and there is a musical unity to it that was striking to me. 

This time singing it, though, I looked at the words that we sung at this part of the music (and I've expanded the word phrase a little bit to place it in context:

• the everlasting light
• proclaim the holy birth
• but in this world of sin
• the great glad tidings tell

When you read them in sequence, they are almost a poem.  I don't know why there is this unusal (for the song) piece of unharmonized music (or at least, less harmonized), but I like to think it is because the musician wants us to notice something. 

There is an everlasting light, born to us. We live in a world of sin, but we have great glad tidings to tell - to proclaim the holy birth.