“O Little Town of Bethlehem” is one of the staples of school Christmas pageants. Or it was in the days when they had school Christmas pageants. I have to say that I was never enthusiastic about it because it always sounded to me like the people singing it were drunk.
However,
it turns out that there’s an alternative melody for the one we sing in the US
(which is “St. Louis”, by the collaborator of Phillips Brooks, the Episcopal
priest who wrote the lyrics in 1868). That would be “Forest Green”, and it’s
the one they sing in Great Britain. This version does not sound like the choir
just spilled out of the pub at closing time, and I like it.
Here's the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, singing it. Sober as judges.
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