A beautiful Christmas carol is made even more beautiful

 

 

The great thing about Christmas music is that it provides musicians with the ultimate in cover songs—they can adapt, change and adjust the work and they’ll never hear “but the Beatles still did it best.”

 

One of my favourite adaptations of a Christmas carol is Sam Phillips’ version of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”. Phillips made a simple, brilliant change of putting the song in a minor key which gives the song, and its powerful, evocative lyrics, a sense of fragility and power at the same time.

 

Bruce Cockburn used Phillips’ adaptation for his own version of this song, but I like Phillips’ version best especially for the simple, undecorative guitar line. It’s haunting in all the ways good music should be.

 

See: http://www.imeem.com/people/208v1Hw/music/69cFIv8v/sam_phillips_it_came_upon_a_midnight_clear/