Johnny Cash
This is Johnny Cash's straightforward reading of the traditional carol, sung without irony or reinterpretation. The interest…
nativity reverence light versus darkness
Emmylou Harris
This is a straightforward Nativity carol built around simple exhortation and refrain, casting the singer as one voice among a…
nativity/birth of Christ communal worship guidance and light
Black Sheep
A jubilant, self-introducing party track from the Native Tongues era in which Dres lays out his identity and credentials over a…
self-definition and individuality group/crew loyalty (Native Tongues) binary choice as rhetorical device
This is a straightforward reading of the traditional English carol, with Emmylou Harris's plainspoken vocal treating the…
nativity narrative revelation and light humility of shepherds
Nick Lowe
This is Nick Lowe's arrangement of a traditional African American spiritual cumulative counting song, built around a…
religious catechism cumulative counting communal call-and-response
De La Soul
A weary state-of-hip-hop address from De La Soul, cataloguing everything the group has grown sick of in mid-90s rap culture…
disillusionment with commercial rap materialism and misplaced love urban survival and violence
A loose, free-associative posse-cut style track from De La Soul's most abstract album, built on stream-of-consciousness wordplay…
identity and origin hip-hop lineage and Native Tongues affiliation industry skepticism
Wire
Wire recast the nativity story as a satire of digital-age commerce and self-promotion, splicing biblical imagery with the…
technology and faith commodification of belief surveillance and self-branding
Rosanne Cash
This is a traditional 19th-century Christmas hymn, written by Edmund Sears in 1849, performed here by a young Rosanne Cash on a…
longing for peace weariness and labor spiritual hope
Big Star
A Christmas carol built from borrowed and paraphrased hymn imagery, recorded by a band whose songwriter was in visible crisis at…
rebirth and renewal faith versus despair tradition and inheritance
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton's rendition of the traditional African American spiritual carol is a straightforward proclamation of the Nativity…
proclamation of good news communal celebration awe and reverence
Pete Seeger
This traditional American work song, sung here by Pete Seeger in his folk-revival style, tells a fragmentary story of a white…
longing and distance cultural and racial encounter exploitation disguised as courtship