‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’: what are the lyrics and who wrote the carol? (2024)

FAQs

Who wrote the song We Wish You a Merry Christmas? ›

At that time, carollers wanted grub like figgy pudding (see the second verse, below) to keep their tummies full and spirits high on cold winter evenings. But for its present popularity we can thank the composer Arthur Warrell, who published a carol in 1939 called 'A Merry Christmas'.

It was Christmas Eve, 1818, when the now-famous carol was first performed as Stille Nacht Heilige Nacht. Joseph Mohr, the young priest who wrote the lyrics, played the guitar and sang along with Franz Xaver Gruber, the choir director who had written the melody.

"We Wish You a Merry Christmas" is an English Christmas carol, listed as numbers 230 and 9681 in the Roud Folk Song Index. The famous version of the carol is from the English West Country.

The line “We wish you a merry Christmas” was a welcome to the owners of the house, and the following words about the figgy pudding meant that the group of performers would not stop singing until a reward was received.

"The Christmas Song" (commonly subtitled "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" or, as it was originally subtitled, "Merry Christmas to You") is a classic Christmas song written in 1945 by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé.

Reportedly, one of the first known Christmas hymns is "Jesus Refulsit Omnium" ("Jesus, Light of All the Nations"), written by St. Hilary of Poitier in the fourth century.

In December 1845, Charles Dickens published a holiday story that quickly became a sensation among Victorian readers. Its first printing of 16,500 copies quickly sold out before the new year, then went into numerous reprints that affirmed its commercial appeal.

Silent Night is basically the Happy Birthday of Christmas carols: It's the most popular song in the world and has been translated into over 100 languages.

The early Christmas songs were more like religious hymns. So, what is the oldest popular Christmas carol that we are still singing today? The strongest contender is “The Friendly Beast,” a song created back more than 900 years ago.

The story ends with the narration saying that Scrooge always remembered his time with the spirits. It also says that Scrooge kept Christmas well. The final line of the story is: ''And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us, every one!''

What does "bring me some figgy pudding" mean? ›

" 'Figgy' — certainly at some time figs would have been incorporated into Christmas pudding recipes, but today, not traditionally." It's also a pudding in the British sense, meaning dessert — not the creamy, custardy dish most Americans associate with the word. It's a steamed cake full of raisins, currants and brandy.

Every “Christmas Carol” is a “Christmas Song”, but not every “Christmas Song” is a “Christmas Carol”. “Christmas Carols” are written from a Christian biblical/religious perspective and include such classics as Silent Night, The First Noel, Good King Wenceslas and so on.

As well as explaining what happened around Jesus's birth, the songs enable us to encapsulate and express the joy, devotion and awe-inspiring scenes of the nativity. As well as telling the nativity story, Christmas carols spread joy and warmth during the coldest months of the year in the Northern hemisphere.

"Carol of the Bells" is a popular Christmas carol, which is based on the Ukrainian New Year's song "Shchedryk." The music for the carol comes from the song written by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1914; the English-language lyrics were written in 1936 by Peter Wilhousky.

Though probably written many years later, the lyric from “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” announcing “We won't go until we get some” referred to how revelers used Christmas carols to extort what they wanted from the wealthy.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of popular British and Irish musical acts.