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 gonna 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 and round, all is bright, round and round, young virgin, mother and child, holy infant, so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace, all is well, all is well, all is well, all is well, 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?
Oh 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 lights sometimes, something is bright if it gives a lot of light off.
And well the next line is very interesting because it says round yawn virgin mother and child.
Now you see this first two words there, round yawn, what is round yawn?
So round comes from around, yawn means over there.
So around over there, so over there we've got two people, okay, 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 this is 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.
Okay 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, okay, 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.
Exactly.
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.
Right 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.
But 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.
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 heaven.
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, or the heavens that are far away are giving us all of this joy and happiness.
Okay, glory.
And then the song says heavenly hosts sing alleluia.
So heavenly hosts, those are bodies or people or spirits, angels, angels, they're singing alleluia.
So alleluia is a word that we often use in the Christian religion that comes from Greek actually.
Oh really?
Yeah, so alleluia is a Greek word and it means celebrate, joy, amen.
Okay, alleluia.
It's something you're happy about, alleluia.
Halleluia.
And then they say Christ the Savior is born.
Now we have this the Savior.
What is it, who is a Savior or what is a Savior?
It's a very good question.
The 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 was 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.
All right.
Christ the Savior.
All right, and then our next verse it says, a 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.
Okay.
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.
Okay.
And what about this word thy?
It's very popular, like old English, right?
It's an old English form of saying?
You.
You.
Right.
So in the olden days in English, we had different ways of saying the word you.
Okay.
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.
Now 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.
Okay.
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.
Okay.
Okay.
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.
Right.
But it's worth something when I redeem it.
Okay.
Okay.
So Christ the Redeemer, when he saves people, he redeems them.
Okay.
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, in many parts of the world.
So why don't we have a listen to this song one last time?
Holy night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright, round young virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild, sleep in heavenly peace, sleep in heavenly peace.
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.
Oh really?
Yeah.
So it's the same rhythm and everything, but just in German.
Exactly.
And is it this pretty much the same idea, the same words?
Yeah, almost exactly the same.
Oh really?
Just in the translated form.
So maybe it came from German, I don't know.
Because it seems to be pretty old, right?
That's right.
But it is a very common song during Christmas, and even many times Christmas carolers will go around in a 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 the song.
It is.
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.