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Carol Reading / Shortly Before 8:30pm
Lady Maisery
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Lyrics
Original
Translation
Bilingual
Shortly before 8:30 pm
As the Sportsman Inn of Lodge Moor on the western edge of Sheffield
Is beginning to fill up with animated winter drinkers
Someone arrives with a small electronic keyboard
And sets it down on a table near the bay window
"What's that strange contraption?"
Jokes one of the regulars near the front
"Don't worry," he's reassured. "No one's going to play it
It's just to give the first note if it's needed."
"Oh, good. You had me worried there."
The carols at Lodge Moor are unaccompanied
Everyone knows that
They might use an organ in Dungworth a few miles away
Across the Rivelin Valley
Other the pubs a bit further afield might have occasional brass
Or even stringed accompaniment
But here, in a handful of villages across a tiny stretch of countyside
West of Sheffield
The festive carolling, fuelled by pints of ale
Is to the sound of the human voice alone
Despite their religious themes
It's a long time since these songs have had much to do with the church
Most of the carols that are sung in the Sportsman
Originated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries
Where they were performed in the west galleries
Of village churches by local musicians
As the victorians tidied up church worship, however
The folksy hymns sung with questionable doctrine
Or disconcertingly exuberant choruses
Were pushed out into the pubs and homes of local people
Who, canonical or not, still loved to sing them
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