This page is provided so that you can hear the tunes of items which we use in church. Mostly they are written by the vicar. Please note that they are copyright - we are very happy to give permission to you to use them, but we would like to hear about it. Please include any use on your Christian Copyright Licence returns.
Down this page:
- the words,
- the story,
- the sheet music,
- media player.
We keep the lambs and sheep
We keep the lambs and sheep
We keep the lambs and sheep, Baa
safe in the fields all night.
It's dark, fierce dogs might bark, Woof
but we are there, the sheep will be all right.
Last night we got a fright, Aaah!
an angel came to say:
“Good news I've got for yous, Huh?
the Saviour of the world is born today.
“And now, beside the cow, Moo
the manger is his bed,
so look, but mind the duck, Quack
in Bethlehem, he’s sleeping in the shed.”
So we have come to see, Please?
The baby in the hay.
He's King, and we will sing, La!
The Saviour of the world is born today.
Words and music copyright © John Hartley 2004.
(The words in bold go on the "noise" indications which are represented by cymbals in the midi file.)
Story behind the song
I wrote this Christmas carol for the St Luke's Church Nativity Service, after investigating some published material which had an excellent song for the wise men but a rather indifferent one for the shepherds. I wanted some humour for the children, and I wanted something that said they were ordinary people who had found the appearance of the angels very shocking.
It turned out to be something of a publicity success for our church: you can find a BBC Video Nation clip featuring this carol by following this link, and the carol was also featured on BBC Yorkshire & Humberside's Look North regional news programme on Tuesday 20th December 2004.
John Hartley
Windows Media Player. When you click the left-hand "play" button your computer should have started to play the tune. If it didn't, you might be able to get the tune by clicking here, or by right-clicking the link, choosing "save target as", saving it onto your computer, and then opening it with a music-playing program.
Please remember that a midi file of a tune isn't supposed to be a state-of-the-art musical arrangement - it is only supposed to give a basic idea of how the tune goes. Any reasonable organist / keyboard player / music group could make it sound far better.