Foxes and Fossils, the Atlanta-based dads-and-daughters YouTube band, this year covered one of my favorite holiday songs, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Civil War Christmas poem set to John Gorka’s original tune. Darwin Conort, the Fossil with the acoustic guitar chops, takes the lead vocal.
Longfellow wrote the poem on Christmas Day 1863, just a month after his son was gravely wounded on the battlefield, which accounts for the narrator’s shaken faith, finally restored by the persistent peal of church bells. It was set to several melodies over the years, one more insipid and forgettable than the next, until Gorka managed to capture the doubt and sadness at its heart.
Here’s Gorka’s original version, which he titled simply “Christmas Bells.” It was featured on Windham Hill’s third Winter Solstice collection, released in 1990.
