ONE of the great things about Christmastime is that folk music is everywhere. At other times of the year, folk music is never popular music. At Christmas, the mainstream embraces vintage hymns and songs, and these are continually reinterpreted.

Here is a less familiar hymn, the Shaker song “Hail the Memorable Morn,” with beautiful call-and-response refrains by all-female and all-male sections. It was composed in Watervliet, New York in the 1830s.

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James M. writes:

Thanks for posting this wonderful music. I find this piece to be quite novel, yet familiar. I am saving this one so I can listen on my way to work tomorrow.

Laura writes:

You’re welcome. I have tried to find the lyrics, but have had no success. I enjoy the version of this hymn on a CD called Traditional and Modern Carols, by the Pro Arte Singers with Paul Hillier directing. There are a number of other simple and lesser known folk hymns on it, such as “Jesus Christ the Apple Tree” by Elizabeth Poston.

James M. writes:

I found on good ol’ Google Books a book of hymns and poems, published in Watervliet, OH, which contains a version of “Hail the Memorable Morn.” The main difference between this version and the Pro Arte Singers recording is that the last verse is completely different. Here is the Google Books link:

I have written out the words to the Pro Arte Singers version:

Men & Women:
HAIL the memorable morn!
When the voice was heard in heav’n
“Unto us a child is born!
Unto us a Son is giv’n
Now the sceptre he shall sway,
Reign on earth the Prince of peace,
And heav’n and earth may pass away,
But his pure kingdom shall increase.

Men:
Where did this new birth take place
Pray, was it among the Jews?
Or was it from the fallen race
the angels got the joyful news?

Women:
Nay, he was God’s only Son,
And his parents did declare—
That the time was fully come,
To introduce their royal heir.

M:
Was the kingship then complete
Or when did Christ his reign begin?
And without an helper meet,
Could he make an end of sin?

W:
Half the Savior then was own’d,
This was all the world could bear;
Still the whole creation groan’d,
Waiting for the Second Heir.

M:
True, for many hundred years^
All creation’s been in pain
Pouring out their cries and tears—
“O that Christ would come again.”

W:
Well, from this we plainly see
That the whole were jointly bound,
And till the woman did get free,
Groaning was the common sound.

M:
Can you confidently state
Who was God’s peculiar one,
Whom he did predestinate
To bear the image of his Son?
W:
Sure it could not be a man;—
None with Jesus could compare.
Was it your good Mother Ann?
Yea it was we do declare.

W:
She has form’d that union band,
That we are no longer two;
On the level now we stand,
And are just as free as you,
M:
Can you say, beyond a doubt,
That salvation you have found?
W:
If salvation you will shout,
We shall echo back the sound.

M:
Shall we shout, or shall we laugh!
Surely we may feel releas’d,
When our lovely other half
Is deliver’d from the beast.
W:
You may shout, or you may shake,
You may skip, or you may play;
We are sav’d, there’s no mistake,
For it is the woman’s day.

M&W:
Then our voices we’ll unite.
Celebrate the gospel plan,
Walking in the mutual light
Of Jesus Christ and Mother Ann.
Let the old creation groan,
While in satan’s dark employ.
Mother’s children God will own,—
They can shout with heav’nly joy.

——-
I can’t make out all of the words to the last verse of the recording. This is the verse in the text found on Google Books but is not in the recording:

COME all who will, and drink your fill!
Come, Zion’s sons and daughters;
Come young and old, with courage bold,
And taste the living waters.
This is the day, that God did say
Should, in the end, be given,
When he would make all things to shake
In the old earth and heaven.

I am fascinated by these lyrics. I knew nothing of the Shakers but from this I gather that they believed in a female savior who came after Jesus specifically to save women, and that women were not saved until her arrival. Bizarre beliefs, beautiful music.

Laura writes:

Thank you!

Mother Ann was the founder of the American Shakers, or the United Society of the Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing. Ann Lee was an illiterate woman who first became a “Shaker” given to ecstatic visions during her youth and early adulthood in industrial Britain. Shaking involves trembling and quaking in the presence of the divine. Ann was arrested in Britian and eventually left for America. She was known for her visions and believed to be a female counterpart of Christ. The Shakers did not condone sexual relations between men and women despite the lovely male and female interaction in this song. Mother Ann believed in strict equality between the sexes. She supposedly had a lifelong abhorrence of sex.

The Shakers were extremely industrious during their short existence in eighteenth and nineteenth century America. They are perhaps most commonly associated today with hand-crafted furniture.

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