Hark Hark What News
The 25th Track 12
Probably written by John Hall, a Sheffield blacksmith, in the late eighteenth century, and still sung today in carol-singing pubs around Sheffield.
Our arrangement is based on a recording made by Ian Russell in 1973 at the Black Bull at Ecclesfield. This featured on the classic LP A People’s Carol, and is one of Andy’s Desert Island Discs. A People’s Carol has long been unavailable, but a more recent recording by Ian Russell can be found on a CD released on the Smithsonian Folkways label, English Village Carols: Traditional Christmas Carolling from the Southern Pennines. Ian Russell’s notes to the Folkways CD say that this
"is the only carol to be repeated during the evening, 'Hark, Hark! For latecomers'. It has been sung in the village for as long as anyone can remember. The music is attributed to John Hall of Sheffield Park, a blacksmith who dies in the poorhouse in 1794, and it was probably included in his “Selection of Sacred Music on the Nativity” performed at the Hospital Chapel, Sheffield, 26 December 1792. The text appears in broadsheets and chapbooks from the early nineteenth century, but its author is unknown.
A live recording of this carol can be heard at A Folk Song A Week Week 68 – Lo! The Eastern Sages Rise / Hark Hark What News.