11/25/2018
Offertory, November 25, 2018
“Do You Hear What I Hear”
Words: Noel Regney (1922-2002)
Music: Gloria Shayne (1923-2008)
During the threat of a nuclear war posed by the Cuban Missile Crisis in October, 1962, Noel Regney was asked to write a Christmas song. This crisis came about because Russia was building nuclear bomb launch facilities in Cuba, 90 miles from the American coast.
This threat was especially frightening for Noel who was born and raised in France and had lived through World War II. He fought the N***s as a member of the French underground. When the missile crisis came, he feared the peaceful life he had built for himself in the United States was coming to an end. Burdened by the fear of another, even more devastating war, he had to write a Christmas song. As he walked home, he saw two mothers with their smiling babies and his mood was lifted. With the babies reminding him of lambs, he wrote the first line of the song, “Said the night wind to the little lamb.”
His wife, Gloria, wrote the melody. Gloria’s daughter, Gabrielle, said, “While walking down the street in New York, my mother heard trumpets playing the melody in her head.”
Released just after Thanksgiving in 1962, the song became a hit, selling more than 250,000 copies during that holiday season.
But Noel and Gloria had trouble performing the song themselves at that time because of the emotions surrounding the missile crisis.
The last verse of the song reflects the couple’s wish for peace:
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
He will bring us goodness and light.
That can be our hope for this Christmas season.
Written by: Phyllis Rose
