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Special and Hopeful the Do You Hear What I Hear? song

Do You Hear What I Hear? Best Versions

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston
Do you Hear What I Hear? – Carrie Underwood
Do You Hear What I Hear? – Celtic Women

“Do You Hear What I Hear?” is a Christmas song with a touching story behind it.

The odds of Gloria Shayne and Noel Regney coming together were long at best.  Yet somehow, although born worlds apart, a Frenchman and an American found each other in the middle of the world’s busiest city and eventually teamed up to create a Christmas song that was truly inspired.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Story of the Writers

Noel Regney grew up in Europe with a deep love of music.  As a young man, his effort to create a new classical compositions was interrupted by the outbreak of World War 2.  Forced into the Nazi army, Regney soon escaped to his native France and joined a group of resistance fighters.  Instead of writing peaceful music, he spent the rest of the war fighting to bring peace back to France.

After the war, it was music that brought Noel to the United States, and in the late 1950s he wandered into New York’s Beverly Hotel.  There, in the luxurious dining room, he saw a beautiful woman playing popular music on the piano.  Though he spoke very little English, Noel was so enthralled that he boldly introduced himself to Gloria Shayne.  Within a month, the man who spoke rudimentary English and the woman who didn’t understand French, married.

On the surface, Noel and Gloria’s union was very unique.  What could an American woman, determined to write rock and roll, and a Frenchman, in the States to record classical music, have in common?  Yet it would take the marriage of both their skill and insight, as well as their cultures and experience, to create a song that would cause millions around the world to stop, look, and listen.

By 1962, Noel had mastered English and been completely exposed to the world of American popular music, thanks in large part to Gloria’s writing a huge rock and roll hit.  Teen idol James Darren had cut Shayne’s “Goodbye Cruel World” and took the number to the top of the charts.  As her career took off, Gloria’s passion for writing magnified.  She spent hours each day at the piano beating out new material.

While Noel saw the financial potential of popular music and hear his wife playing it every day, he still wanted to create something beautiful that would last longer than just a quick trip up the charts.  The inspiration that would utilize both the man’s classical imagery and his wife’s contemporary beat was to come from yet another war, this one fought a long way from the American city Regney now called home.

Noel had often prayed that World War 2 would be the war that would finally end all wars.  He couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to revisit the horrors he had viewed firsthand.  Yet his prayer had been shattered in the 50s by the fighting in Korea.  After Korea, Regney watched his native France, and then the United States, become entangled in a bloody jungle battle in Vietnam.  As more and more young men were injured and killed the Frenchman wondered if the world would ever find real peace.

Fighting the depression brought on by flashbacks to his own days as a Nazi soldier and then as a resistance fighter, coupled with the news he saw on television each day, Noel sought out something that would bring him peace of mind.  

Fighting the depression brought on by flashbacks to his own days as a Nazi soldier and then as a resistance fighter, coupled with the news he saw on television each day, Noel sought out something that would bring him peace of mind.  In an effort to put his pain into perspective, he turned back to the one moment in time when he felt the Lord had given men a chance to live life without hate, fear, or conflict.

Do You Hear What I Hear? Meaning and Inspiration

Picking up a pen, Regney wrote a poem about the first Christmas.  Fighting through some of the most difficult moments he had ever faced, Noel pushed away his nightmarish memories of World War 2, the news from Vietnam, and the current tension building between the USSR and the US – a pressure that seemed to be pushing the world into yet another war.  As he concentrated on the events leading up to the birth of Jesus, the world around him grew strangely quiet.

His memories took Noel back to a scene of sheep walking through the beautiful green fields of his native France.  He considered the innocence of a newly born lamb.  This was a creature whose spirit man should emulate, an animal that surely the Creator himself had touched in a very special way.  Thoughts of the lamb, and a child who might have cared for it, inspired Noel to write a poem that not only described peace on earth, but which also spoke of the peace that came to earth on that first Christmas night.

“When he finished,” Gloria recalled, “Noel gave it to me and asked me to write the music.  He said he wanted me to do it because he didn’t want the song to be too classical.  I read over the lyrics, then went shopping.  I was going to Bloomingdale’s when I thought of the first music line.”

When Gloria returned home she discovered that she had inserted an extra note in her melody, causing her music to no longer fit Noel’s lyrics.  Listening to what his wife had composed, Noel opted to add a word rather than risk losing what he considered one of the most beautiful melodies he had ever heard.  So “Said the wind to the little lamb” became “Said the night wind to the little lamb”  Not only did this addition keep the music intact, but the imagery of God speaking on the wind became even more wondrous.  Yet when Gloria asked him to change one more line in the first verse, Noel balked.

“I told him that no one in the country would understand ‘tall as big as a kite'” Gloria explained.  “yet he wouldn’t change that, As it turned out, he was right.  It is a line that people dearly love.”

Do You Hear What I Hear? Taken to the Editors

The couple took the finished song to the Regent Publishing Company.  Owned by the brothers of famed big band leader Benny Goodman, it was one of New York’s best music houses.  With Noel singing and Gloria playing, the song made its professional debut. 

Within minutes, Regent had contacted Harry Simeone  It was his group that had scored a huge Christmas hit four years before with “Little Drummer Boy.”  Simeone wanted to hear the song right away.  Since the couple didn’t have a demo, Gloria recalled that this created a major problem:  “Noel couldn’t play and sing at the same time, and I had to go play for a commercial.  I couldn’t break my date, so he went by himself.  When he got home he told me that he had botched it up.”

Gloria and Noel had every reason to believe “Do you hear what I hear?” would not be recorded.  Even in Regney had perfectly performed the song for Simeone, since the David Seville’s comical Chipmunks had recently scored with a novelty Christmas number, it seemed that no one was looking for spiritual holiday song.  Both were shocked when, a few days later, the Harry Simeone Chorale recorded their touching work with plans to release it as a single.

“Noel hadn’t had much success in his classical career,” Gloria recalled, “and he wanted to do something meaningful and beautiful, in this song he did.”

Do you hear what I hear? – Affects the Nation

The couple could not have dared imagine the effect “Do You Hear What I Hear?” would have on the nation.  At the height of the Cold War, millions, like Noel, were yearning for peace and hope.  This carol’s combination of words and music powerfully voiced those prayers.  Newspaper stories of the time wrote of drivers hearing it for the first time on the radio and pulling their cars off the road to listen.  It seemed that the song didn’t just touch the world; it made people stop, look, and listen.

In 1963, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” became a Christmas standard when it was recorded by BIng Crosby.  It was sung by church choirs, became an integral part of television specials, and inspired numerous magazine features and even Christmas sermons.

“We couldn’t believe it,” Gloria admitted “So many people wrote us to tell how much the song meant to them.  We didn’t know it would cause that kind of outpouring of emotion.”

Four decades after they first sang it for their publisher, Noel and Gloria have heard hundreds of different versions of their song.  While each is special in its own way, Gloria explained that it was Rober Goulet’s that made even the songwriters step back and listen:  “When Robert Goulet came to the line, ‘Pray for peace people everywhere,’ he almost shouted those words out.  It was so powerful!”

Goulet had gotten it right.  That shout was exactly what Noel thought the whole world needed to be doing each day – demanding peace for all people everywhere.

The hands of the woman who composed the music have now been silenced by an operation that keeps her from playing the piano.  Noel, whose past experiences brought the words to life, recently had a stroke; he can no longer speak, much less sing.  Yet thanks to the song that brought both Gloria and Noel to the spotlight, the message of peace on earth and goodwill toward all found in “Do You Hear What I Hear?” touches millions each year.

Do You Hear What I Hear Lyrics

Said the night wind to the little lamb
Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
Way up in the sky, little lamb
Do you see what I see?
(Do you see what I see?)
A star, a star, dancing in the night
With a tail as big as a kite
With a tail as big as a kite

Said the little lamb to the shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear?
(Do you hear what I hear?)
Ringing through the sky, shepherd boy
Do you hear what I hear?
(Do you hear what I hear?)

A song, a song high above the trees
With a voice as big as the sea
With a voice as big as the sea

Said the shepherd boy to the mighty king
Do you know what I know? (Do you know what I know?)
In your palace warm, mighty king
Do you know what I know? (Do you know what I know?)

A Child, a Child shivers in the cold
Let us bring him silver and gold
Let us bring him silver and gold

Said the king to the people everywhere
Listen to what I say! (Listen to what I say!)
Pray for peace, people, everywhere
Listen to what I say! (Listen to what I say!)
The Child, the Child sleeping in the night
He will bring us goodness and light
He will bring us goodness and light

Noel Regney, Songwriter Known for ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’ Is Dead at 80 – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

For another Great Christmas Carol Try the First Noel…

The First Noel – Learn About the History of the Old Beautiful Christmas Song Filled with Hope (First Published in 1823) – The All Christmas Website (celebratechristmas.co)

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