Silent Night

Hello everyone and welcome back to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

And my name is Catherine.

And it's the holiday season so that means more Christmas songs for you guys.

That's right.

And today we're going to be taking a look at a very famous song, very relaxed but very

beautiful song called Silent Night.

Yeah, this is one of those songs that you hear everywhere but unlike Jingle Bells which

is like jingle bells, jingle bells, not, you know, very cheery and uplifting and shopping

music.

This is more, as Marco said, calm, peaceful, almost church music.

So we're going to find out what the words mean in this very classic song.

Right, it's classic and very religious because it has a connotation towards the Catholic

religion.

So why don't we listen to the song and then we'll be back to explain it.

Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

Round yon virgin, mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.

Sleep in heavenly peace.

Alright we're back.

So now let's take a look at this song line by line.

So we're not going to do the standard format of picking out words.

We're going to do it line by line to kind of get a good feel for this dialogue.

So first of all some background.

Okay so the 24th, the evening, Mary and Joseph are looking for a place to stay.

Mary, the virgin mother of God, is going to give birth to a baby.

And they need a place to stay so finally they find a place.

It's not a hotel, it's not a house.

It's like an inn.

Yeah, well it's actually the stables for the inn, right?

Yeah, the stables for the inn, yeah.

And so what the song is celebrating is what happens afterwards, after the baby Jesus is

born.

So that's where we are.

Alright, so the first line says silent night, holy night.

As you know it's holy, that means it's religiously special, it's important.

Okay, all is calm, all is bright.

So we talk about bright light sometimes.

Something is bright if it gives a lot of light off.

And well the next line is very interesting because it says round yon virgin mother and

child.

Now you see this first two words there, round yon.

What is round yon?

So round comes from around.

Yon means over there.

So around over there, so over there we've got two people.

Over there we've got the virgin mother and her child.

Okay so the virgin mother is Mary, right?

That's right.

And the child would be Jesus.

Exactly.

And it says holy infant, so tender and mild.

Okay so what is an infant?

An infant is a baby, some baby that's just been born.

So we can say that infants are very, very delicate.

You have to be very careful when you hold an infant.

But in this case a holy infant is Jesus, he's special for religious reasons.

And when they say that he's tender and mild, what does he mean by that?

Well you talk about tender things when you're talking about things that are soft, delicate,

gentle or sweet.

And something that is mild or someone that is mild is very quiet and calm and gentle.

So not making much noise.

So the baby is very sweet, very tender and wasn't crying or making a big fuss.

And then we have sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.

Well the baby's quiet because the baby's sleeping.

So you're saying sleep in heavenly peace, that means may the peace of heaven, because

heaven is a very peaceful place, the most peaceful place, may that peace be with you

when you're sleeping.

Okay, very good.

And moving on we have silent night, holy night again.

But then they say shepherds quake at the sight.

So what is this?

Shepherds we know that these are people that take care of sheep.

That's right, they make the sheep move from one place to another.

And it says they quake at the sight.

So they quake at the sight of what?

Well quake, we often say quiver in one's boots.

So to quake means to shake when you're nervous.

So you know when you're going to make a speech in front of many, many, many people, your

hands start to shake, that's called quaking.

So to quake.

So shepherds quake, they're nervous at the sight, well the sight is the noun for seeing

something.

The sight of Jesus.

Of the baby.

Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Glories stream from heaven afar.

So glories stream from heaven afar.

Okay, the verb here, the action word is to stream.

To stream.

Okay, that means to come down.

Okay.

Okay, so to come down in kind of big amounts.

So we have glory, glory, so happiness and joy and glory and good things coming down

from the heavens.

So lots of positive, good things coming down from heaven.

And where is heaven?

Afar.

Afar.

So the key part of this is the word far.

It's far away, right?

Yeah.

Afar is an old word we use to describe something that's far away.

So the heavens afar, the heavens that are far away are giving us all of this joy and

happiness.

Okay.

And then the song says heavenly hosts sing hallelujah.

So heavenly hosts, those are bodies or people or spirits in the sky.

Like angels.

Angels.

They're singing hallelujah.

So hallelujah is a word that we often use in the Christian religion that comes from

Greek actually.

Oh really?

Yeah.

So hallelujah is a Greek word and it means celebrate, joy, amen.

Okay, hallelujah.

It's something you're happy about.

Hallelujah.

Hallelujah.

And then they say Christ, the savior is born.

Now we have this, the savior.

What is it?

Who is a savior?

What is a savior?

It's a very good question.

A savior is a word we only really, well, we don't hear that often, but you've heard the

word to save before.

So for example, I fell into the water and Marco jumped in and saved me.

So I would be a savior?

Marco is my savior.

He saved me.

But in this case, savior refers to the Bible and the things that Jesus did later.

So we say in Christianity, he saved people, the humankind.

So he is the savior.

Christ the savior.

All right.

And then our next verse, it says, silent night, holy night, son of God loves pure light, radiant

beams from thy holy face.

So we have radiant beams and then we have this word thy.

So these beams is like a beam of light, right?

It's like a line of light, but you know how light is clear.

So a beam of light is something that comes down in a straight line.

You can see it.

You can see it.

So for example, when I turn on a flashlight and there's a line of light, that's a beam.

And radiant means it's very bright.

It's very clear.

Clear and it's strong and it's coming out from that one place.

And what about this word thy?

It's very popular, like old English, right?

It's an old English form of saying you.

So in the olden days in English, we had different ways of saying the word you.

And so thy is one of those words and you hear this very often.

And so in this sentence, we're saying radiant beams from thy holy face.

We're now starting to talk to Jesus because we're referring to him.

You radiant beams, light is coming out of your face.

Your holy face.

Because you're such a holy.

I think you can probably see this thy and thou in Shakespeare, for example, right?

Exactly.

Shakespeare, the Bible, prayers, and all sorts of old books and poetry.

And then we say with the dawn of redeeming grace.

So what is to redeem?

To redeem is to find value in something that didn't have value before.

So maybe I have a ticket for some, okay, I won a small lottery ticket, $5.

I go to the store to redeem my money.

The paper is worthless, but it's worth something when I redeem it.

So Christ the Redeemer, when he saves people, he redeems them.

He gives them value again.

Very good.

So it's a very profound song, right?

And it talks about, as we say, about Jesus, about angels, and it's very, very religious.

So it's a great song and it's, well, it's a very popular song.

And well, even if you don't share the religious connotation that the song has, it still is

very popular in North America and many parts of the world.

So why don't we have a listen to this song one last time?

So when I was a little girl at school, we had to sing this in German.

So I know that there are some other countries that have the same song with different words.

So it's the same rhythm and everything, but just in German.

And is it pretty much the same idea, the same words?

Yeah, almost exactly the same, just in a translated form.

Maybe it came from German, I don't know.

Because it seems to be pretty old, right?

But it is a very common song during Christmas.

And even many times, Christmas carolers will go around in the neighborhood and sing these

songs in different places, right?

Exactly.

And it's a really beautiful song, one of my favorites.

And I'm not a religious person, so I don't really like it for the religious perspective

that it gives.

But I do think that it's just one of those beautiful classic songs that makes the season

very warm and special.

The music is nice in this song.

Alright, so an interesting song and I'm sure we're going to have a lot of questions and

comments about it.

So we expect to see you guys on our website EnglishPod.com and we'll see you guys there.

Happy holidays and enjoy.

Bye guys.

Enjoy Christmas, sing along with us.