Once in royal David’s city
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for his bed:
Mary was that Mother mild,
Jesus Christ her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven
Who is God and Lord of all,
And his shelter was a stable,
And his cradle was a stall:
With the poor and mean and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

And our eyes at last shall see him
Through his own redeeming love,
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And he leads his children on
To the place where he is gone.

Credits

Words by Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)
Music by Henry John Gauntlett (1805-1876)
Arranged by Alan Sanderson

Alan Sanderson: guitar, mandolin, banjo, vocals, recording, mixing, mastering
Marisa Sanderson: clarinet, vocals
Johann: vocals, recording, second verse arrangement
Sanderson Family: vocals

Alan’s Production Notes

I learned to love this song during my first Christmas in England. I bought a cassette tape of a boy’s choir singing Christmas songs, and this tune was on it. Not only is the music beautiful, but the lyrics are simply divine. The best Christmas songs are the ones that bear pure testimony of the Savior.

This recording features the guitar I first learned to play on — a 3/4 sized acoustic with nylon strings. It has a really dark sound because of the low string tension, which made it great for playing grunge rock power chords when I was a teenager. I once loaned it to my sister-in-law when she was taking a guitar class, and almost forgot about it. When I thought about it one day we looked around and couldn’t find it anywhere. We figured it was gone forever.

Then two Christmases ago my mother-in-law found it while cleaning her garage and brought it to me. What a reunion! I strummed its strings and that brooding tone just came rumbling out of its sound hole. I felt like a pimply teenager again.

Today this old guitar is leaning against the wall beside my bed. It is my go-to instrument for playing music around the house, and I often use it while working on lyrics. After 30+ years of playing this guitar I figured that it was time to finally use it on a serious recording.

Production Stats

• Dates: December 2021
• Equipment:
  • Instruments: Royce nylon string guitar, Kentucky mandolin, Appalachian banjo, student clarinet
  • Hardware: Behringer Xenyx 1204USB, DIY condenser microphone by Michael Willis
• Software:
  • Ardour 6.9
  • Linux Mint 20.2
  • Dragonfly Hall Reverb
  • x42-plugins: limiters, compressors, parametric EQ
  • Calf Studio Gear: multi spread
  • sfizz with Virtual Playing Orchestra
• 35 Tracks and buses:
  • 24 vocal: 3 lead, 9 backing, 12 choir
  • 4 Live instrument: guitar, mandolin, banjo, clarinet
  • 2 Virtual instrument: flute, cymbals
  • 5 Audio buses
  • 4 Automation tracks
  • 25 Plugins

You can find more of our Christmas recordings here:

Sanderson Family – The Dawn of Redeeming Grace

ARTIST: Sanderson Family ALBUM NAME: The Dawn of Redeeming Grace RELEASED: (in progress) GENRE: Christmas Music

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