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Dec 5, 2025: Episode 6: Advent of Carols 6 - Coventry Carol “Coventry Carol” is easily the saddest song in the Advent canon. The reason we sing it today is even sadder still. But it’s one of …
Dec 4, 2025: Episode 5: Advent of Carols 5 - I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day An American Civil War poem dressed up as a Christmas carol, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is …
Dec 3, 2025: Episode 4: Advent of Carols 4 - In the Bleak Midwinter A simplistic poem by a little-known author, set to music by none other than Gustav Holst. “In the Bleak Midwinter” teaches us to look for …
Dec 2, 2025: Episode 3: Advent of Carols 3 - Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming A tune without a time signature, an unsingable poem, and a name for Jesus—Rose—not found in the Bible. Somehow, the hauntingly beautiful “Lo, …
Dec 1, 2025: Episode 2: Advent of Carols 2 - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel An eighth-century German prayer set to a fifteenth-century French tune, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is perhaps the most Advent-y of all …
Nov 30, 2025: Episode 1: Advent of Carols 1 - Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus We kick off Advent with Charles Wesley’s Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus—a hymn that compresses the whole theology of Advent into a handful of lines: …
Nov 20, 2025: Episode 0: Advent of Carols Introduction Series notes Join VerseNotes Commons to make sure this series and everything we do stays free and ad-free forever. Subscribe to the podcast here …