Pretty little baby

I mentioned on Saturday that this year I’m trying to be more inclusive in my Advent celebration, so I’m going to the Caribbean for the source material, and the Staples Singers for the performance.

I’m more familiar with a different version of this song—last year I gave you Harry Belafonte singing “The Virgin Mary had a Baby Boy”. That take is quite upbeat; you can almost feel the soft sea breeze brush your cheek on it.

By contrast, “The Virgin Mary Had One Son” is decidedly minor, and the R&B group here takes that to its logical melancholy extension. In that, it reminds me a bit of “Mary Was the Queen of Galilee”, which I gave you a few years ago.

It’s as though they’re reminding us that the journey begun under a star in Bethlehem will climax on a cross in Golgotha.