4 Modern-Day Christmas Songs That Are Actually Centuries Old

The Christmas music canon is certainly an expansive list of seasonal tunes, but a handful have risen above the rest to become the most popular and most covered, making it easy to forget that many of our favorite modern-day Christmas songs are actually centuries old. These antique festive tunes act as time capsules, allowing us to peer back through history and hear the music our ancestors were listening to, singing, and playing along to over 500 years ago.

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For some context, we’re talking about the songs that your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great-great-grandparents were singing. Most of us have no heirlooms, tokens, or even knowledge of these faraway ancestors.

But every November and December, we listen to the same music.

“Silent Night” (1818)

Franz Xaver Gruber composed “Silent Night” in 1818 in Salzburg, Austria. The original German title is “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,” which directly translates to the first line of the plaintive carol: silent night, holy night. Per Billboard, “Silent Night” is the most recorded Christmas song of all time, boasting over 137,000 recordings (that we know of). The lyrics came from a poem Father Joseph Mohr wrote two years before, in 1816. Mohr asked Gruber to set his words to music; the rest is history.

“Joy to the World” (1719)

Hymnist Isaac Watts didn’t intend to write a Christmas carol when he composed “Joy to the World” in 1719. But when your music sticks around for over 300 years, some intentions are bound to be lost in translation. Watts originally wrote the hymn as an interpretation of Psalm 98 and Genesis 3, neither of which discuss the birth of Jesus. The descending and ascending melody we know today came over 100 years after Watts first wrote the song. Composer Lowell Mason established the current melody of “Joy to the World” in The National Psalmist in 1848.

“Coventry Carol” (1500s)

On the opposite end of “Joy to the World” on the Christmas music spectrum is “Coventry Carol,” a somber lullaby describing the Massacre of the Innocents, which the Bible covers in the Gospel of Matthew. Although this holiday tune is more popular in religious or choral settings, it’s still a favorite amidst the sacred music community. It’s also one of the oldest Christmas songs we still sing regularly, dating back to the 16th century. The lyrics date back to 1534, and the melody dates back to 1591.

“O Tannenbaum” (1500s)

“O Tannenbaum,” or “O Christmas Tree” in English, stems from a decidedly un-festive German folk song about a cheating lover. The song commended fir trees for their steadfastness through the winter, but as these evergreens became more ubiquitous during the holidays, “O Tannenbaum” transformed from a breakup song to a Christmas carol. The original folk song dates back to the 1500s, but the modern lyrics and melody are more “recent.” These date back to 1824 by composer Ernst Anschütz.

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