Winter is on My Head Vol. 1

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Credits & Notes

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Lyrics written by James Montgomery
Music written by Henry Smart
Arrangement by Ryan Medina

2. Angels From The Realms Of Glory

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Lyrics

Notes

Initially I was interested in covering a different Christmas hymn, which turned out to be beautifully arranged by another artist on this album. This actually turned out well, because it forced me into doing a bit more Christmas hymn/song investigation. During my search I stumbled across an old hymn, Angels from the Realms of Glory, which I somewhat remembered from years past. Immediately the lyrics touched me and while listening to the melody, the song captured me. The lyrics have such beautiful imagery and richness. A few lines that initially struck me are, "Ye who sang creation's story, Now proclaim Messiah's birth" and "God with man is now residing, Yonder shines the infant light." Beyond that the chorus is simply "Come and worship, Come and worship, worship Christ the newborn King," which is so simple, yet captures the essence of Christmas so well.

After falling head over heals for Angels from the Realms of Glory the real work began. The task was bringing an old hymn with old language--that is amazing as it is--into our present time musically. This task took the longest by far. The main musical change was a new melody arrangement with different timing. The time change is significant and runs throughout the song; every other measure is either 4/4 or 5/4. This allowed for a significant melody change within the song. Other than that I just added some extra measures and a guitar solo. Once that was finished I got to work. Seeing as how I decided to contribute a song in late October, I only had the option of using myself to do the work. So I locked myself in a room with instruments, microphones, and a computer for two weeks. I'm primarily a guitar player and in that two weeks I pretty much exhausted my musical ability with all the different instrumentation that was used for the final product. Fortunately my Dad was able to help out and sing back-up vocals. It really was an interesting process.

A bit of History

After deciding to take on this song I did a bit of homework and thought I would mention some interesting facts:

• James Montgomery was a British newspaper editor and poet who lived from 1771 to 1854.
• His parents were Christian missionaries that passed when he was a boy.
• He was also a devout Christian since boyhood.
• At the age of 45 James opened his bible on Christmas Eve 1816 to Luke chapter 2, deeply impressed by verse 13 he began to write.
• The poem was printed in the newspaper for Christmas.
• It was liked so well that it was set to music and was first sung Christmas Day 1821.
• The best known song version is James' poem set to the music of Henry Smart's tune Regent Square.
• Henry Smart was a British musician (primarily organ) and composer that lived from 1813 to 1879.
• This is the version that has lasted throughout the years.