Unlikely Carols: Dave Matthews Christmas Song
I’ve said before – more than a few times, actually ☺ – that I love just about everything about Advent and Christmas, and that I especially love the music of the season. Ancient and modern, sacred and secular, I love them all. (Well, not all, but a whole lot!)
So in the spirit of the season I want to share a few of my favorite Christmas songs, some of which you may know, others that perhaps are less familiar, but all of which representatives of what that I like to call “unlikely Christmas carols.”
They’re unlikely not because there is something wrong or inappropriate about them. Indeed I find each one points out something deeply true about the season and faith. Rather, they’re unlikely because of an odd or unusual setting, or because they’re adapted from an unusual source, or because they are written or sung by an unlikely Christmas caroler. And it’s that very oddity — the very thing that makes them unlikely candidates to be Christmas carols in the first place — that I think makes them stick in my mind and feed my spirit.
The song I want to share today falls into the last category; that is, a song written and sung by an unlikely caroler.
Dave Matthews — playing here with Tim Reynolds — isn’t exactly what you’d call religious. In fact, he’s been pretty public about his agnosticism. He said he’d like to believe in an all-powerful, all-loving being but finds it hard to swallow, even absurd. Yet even with that level of skepticism – or, who knows, maybe because of it – he seems to be able to catch the essence of the story as well as any contemporary Christian songwriter I know.
Called simply “The Christmas Song” (though quite different — and far more biblical — than Mel Torme’s song of chestnuts roasting on an open fire!), his song covers the whole story of Jesus’ life from his birth at Christmas to the cross and beyond. One of my favorite lines comes in the middle and does what any good retelling does, it invites you into the story. So when he sings that “The people he (Jesus) knew were / Less than golden-hearted / Gamblers and robbers / Drinkers and jokers /All soul searchers,” he doesn’t only help us think of these characters more generously – as the evangelists themselves did – he also invites us to see ourselves standing with them by closing that verse with,
“Like you and me / Like you and me”
Lines like these help make the song for me a remarkable retelling of the gospel story that is summarized nowhere better than in the simple refrain that captures not just the heart of Christmas but the whole Christian faith as well as anything I know.
When he sings “Love, love, love / Love was all around,” his soulful voice and intentional repetition points us to the mystery of God’s embrace of us in the Word made flesh.
Yet he also has another refrain, this one far more sober, “The blood of the children all around.” And this matters, too, because part of what we confess at Christmas is that God does not stand outside of history, apart from the difficult and dire realities of this life but enters fully into them in the person of Jesus, taking on our lot and our life that we might know God’s love.
This story that begins in a manger, reaches its climax on the cross, and closes with only the bare promise of resurrection gives voice, I think, to the clash between our penchant to spill each others blood and God’s tenacious determination to win us to life through love that abounds.
So give Dave’s unlikely Christmas carol a listen and let me know what you think of it. It is, without a doubt, a bit unconventional, but for perhaps that reason also somewhat profound. I’ll put the lyrics below the video so you can read along if you like. In the meantime, enjoy!
She was his girl, he was her boyfriend
Soon to be his wife, make him her husband
A surprise on the way, any day, any day
One healthy little giggling, dribbling baby boy
The Wise Men came, three made their way
To shower him with love
While he lay in the hay
Shower him with love, love, love
Love love, love
Love, love was all around
Not very much of his childhood was known
Kept his mother Mary worried
Always out on his own
He met another Mary who for a reasonable fee
Less than reputable was known to be
His heart was full of love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love was all around
When Jesus Christ was nailed to the his tree
Said “Oh, Daddy-o, I can see how it all soon will be.
I came to shed a little light on this darkening scene.
Instead I fear I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around.”
The blood of our children all around
The blood of our children’s all around
So I’m told, so the story goes
The people he knew were
Less than golden-hearted
Gamblers and robbers
Drinkers and jokers
All soul searchers
Like you and me
Like you and me
Rumors insisted he soon would be
For his deviations taken into custody
By the authorities, less informed than he.
Drinkers and jokers, all soul searchers
Searching for love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love was all around
Preparations were made
For his celebration day
He said, “Eat this bread, think of it as me.
Drink this wine and dream it will be
The blood of our children all around,
The blood of our children all around.”
The blood of our children’s all around
Father up above,
Why in all this anger do you fill me up with love, love, love?
Love, love, love
Love, love was all around
Father up above,
Why in all this hatred do you fill me up with love?
Fill me love, love, yeah
Love, love, love
Love, love, and the blood of our children all around
Notes: 1) If you are receiving this post by email, you may need to click here to watch the video.
2) The Christmas Song can be found on one of my very favorite Christmas albums,A Very Special Christmas 3
hope you’ll look at Pearl Jam’s “Let Me Sleep.” haven’t heard that song in years!
Beautiful!
And: Bruce Cockburn’s “Cry of a Tiny Babe”
Absolutely. I would add James Taylor’s song Home by another way” to this list.
Another favorite of mine is “It Wasn’t His Child” sung by Freda Myhrwold from the album In Your Hands.
There have been several great suggestions, most of which I don’t know so I’m excited to listen to them.
Thanks, all!
I love this Christmas Carol. It paints a picture of the real world in which we live, “the blood of our children all around”, but at the same time it shows us the true meaning of Christmas, “Why in the midst of this anger do you fill me with love, love, love”
Wouldn’t it be something to have a service of lessons and carols using these and other ‘unlikely’ carols? Copyright would be a huge issue, yet what if……
Beautiful song. You could almost just call it The Gospel Song” since it really tells Jesus’ whole story (besides his Resurrection.)
“I fear I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around,” might also be seen as a reference to Herod’s Slaughter of the Innocents in Ramah in order to stop a new King of Israel from rising up.
That’s the thing about art – you bring your own heart and soul to it.
Great post.
I just purchased the 25th Anniversary album on iTunes where I read that the entire amount each Artist would have received goes to the Special Olympics! The Album was $11.99 and $8.40 of that went to the charity. Best way to purchase a Christmas album ever! Evidently iTunes is not feeling the love though…..
I have to say this is a beautiful song with great potential. The middle verse, regarding the spilling of the children’s blood is key, I think, to understanding the root of Dave Matthews’ agnosticism. Between this line and the lack of the resurrection, suggests Dave Matthews does not recognize the divinity of Jesus as the Christ. Jesus did not fear he spilled the blood of our children, He spilled His blood for God’s children, all whom believe in Him. A simple rewrite from:
Instead I fear I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around
The blood of our children all around
to:
I freely spill my blood for our children all around
For Our children all around
That being said, I believe God is reaching out to and through Dave Matthews with this piece. Where I agree with the author of this blogs statement about confessing the God is active in history, not just a by stander, I do not know that that was Dave Matthews suggestion here. I am just offering my thoughts and mean no disrespect. The song and video are powerful, that s without a doubt.
“I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around.”
This portion of the song has troubled me for the nearly 20 years I’ve loved this song. Clearly, Dave contemplates Jesus’ role in his own faith (or lack thereof). “He said Oh daddy-o” shows if he doesn’t believe Jesus was divine, he at least believes Jesus felt he was divine.
I believe this portion of the song is Dave’s interpretation of “why have you forsaken me?”
As if to say “Father why have you forsaken me toa world full of people who spill blood so willingly?”
He goes on to write “Father up above why in all this hatred do you fill me up with love?” after all.
Dave may not be so agnostic as he thinks he is given how much contemplation he has spent on Jesus role in ourworld. Besides people change, and who knows how he feels today. This is a beautiful song regardless and a wonderful example of how we all question our faith at some point in our life.
Interesting. When I heard the verse “I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around” I thought that he WAS talking about Jesus’s blood which Jesus freely gave us (and gives us). I think the fear he refers to is Jesus own doubt during the crucifixition. And that’s why Matthew’s repeats “the blood of are children all around” because he is making a parallel to love being all around. The blood is the everlasting sign of the Divine’s limitless love for us. The Father allowing the Son to die so we might see his enduring love and have salvation.
At least that’s my thought.
No comment on how Dave Mathews is saying Jesus paid for Mary Magdalene as a prostitute? As a believer, that right there turned me off to the whole song, sorry.
I think that’s Matthew’s lyrical way of saying she was a prostitute, not the Jesus paid her for sex….. though he did offer himself to her (and us) when he was nailed to the tree.
I think it is included in what the song and Dave’s interpretation of what Christianity is all about. No judgement just love love love.
Bit late here but I’m just stumbling onto this.
He has said that his faith was shaken when he saw what was done in apartheid South Africa. (He is South African.) He couldn’t comprehend how God could allow this to go on. He writes “Instead I fear I’ve spilled the blood of our children all around” and then says “Love, love and the blood of our children all around”. This seems to be more of a reference to what would happen to their “children”, meaning the lives lost due to conflict and persecution. He foresaw Christians loving, killing and being killed in their name and in the use of their name.
Powerful, frank imagery that fits both the Biblical narrative of the Christmas Story and what came from it within the context of the gentleman’s life experiences.
“Instead I fear I’ve spilled, the blood of my children all around” has to mean that Christianity, religion itself, has caused quite a few wars and mass killings. Correct me if I’m wrong, but hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the name of religion.
Jesus, was not divine.
He states it immediately.
No virgin birth.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this being a possibility. It is more likely and a better one as well.
It means…
that we are all able
“All you need is love”
“Love is all around”