Do You Hear What I Hear?
Do You Hear What I Hear? tells a story loosely based upon the story of the Nativity of Jesus as told in the Gospel of Matthew, incorporating fragments of the annunciation to the shepherds from the Gospel of Luke, though Jesus is never mentioned by name or explicitly identified.
A “night wind” tells a lamb of a star, following which the lamb tells his young shepherd that he also hears a loud song. They are each led to a “mighty king,” whom they tell of a child in the cold and ask to bring the child silver and gold. The king proclaims a prayer of peace and announces that the child will “bring goodness and light”.
The song was written in October 1962, by Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne. The pair wrote it as a plea for peace during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
“In the studio, the producer was listening to the radio to find out if Washington had been obliterated,” Regney once said of that time.
He was inspired to write the lyrics “Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?'” and “Pray for peace, people everywhere” after watching babies being pushed in strollers on the sidewalks of New York City at the climax of the missile threat.
Shayne stated years later that neither of them could perform the song at the time they wrote it because of the emotions they experienced, composing it while waiting for the Russian attack.
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Said the night wind to the little lamb,
do you see what I see?
Way up in the sky, little lamb,
do you see what I see?
A star, a star, dancing in the night,
With a tail as big as a kite!
With a tail as big as a kite!
Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy,
do you hear what I hear?
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy,
do you hear what I hear?
A song, a song, high above the trees,
With a voice as big as the sea!
With a voice as big as the sea!
Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king,
do you know what I know?
In your palace warm, mighty king,
do you know what I know?
A Child, a Child shivers in the cold,
Let us bring Him silver and gold!
Let us bring Him silver and gold!
Said the king to the people everywhere,
listen to what I say!
Pray for peace, people everywhere!
listen to what I say!
The Child, the Child, sleeping in the night,
He will bring us goodness and light!
He will bring us goodness and light!
This recording of Do You Hear What I Hear by the Tabernacle Choir was made in 2015.
And this 1963 recording by Bing Crosby, made just one year after it was written, brought fame to Regney and Shayne’s “little song” – making for it a permanent place in the catalog of American Christmas music.
