As a friend used to say, the birth of the Savior is just a pious rumor until Christmas...you can't trust every angel that comes down the pike.
"O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is gorgeous, but as it is the "O" antiphons put to music, it's really not liturgically appropriate until December 17th, by which time we're all tired of it because we've sung it every day since First Sunday of Advent, not knowing any other Advent hymns.
So, as a public service, here are a few others, each easily available in choral form or tinkly Wyndam Hill-style piano on iTunes or in midi files with lyrics if you just wish to learn them for singing purposes. All lovely in melody, theologically sound and an aid to meditation if you let the words sink in.
The links below are to whatever pops up on youtube...not vouching for the loveliness of the performances. Au contraire! I'm showing any amateur can learn.
The Advent of Our King
Comfort, Comfort O My People
Come, O Long Expected Jesus (choice of three tunes! here are others!)
Creator of the Stars of Night
Gabriel's Song (see, even Sting knows this one)
Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding
I Sing A Maid (lovely contemporary hymn)
Of the Father's Heart Begotten (each Advent one new hymn sinks into me; this year it's this one)
The King Shall Come
Lift Up Your Heads, Almighty Gates
People, Look East (lyrics from a profoundly Catholic woman/old French carol)
Rejoice, Rejoice Believers (can't find the melody I know, but the lyrics are still wonderful)
O Come, Divine Messiah
On Jordan's Bank (here's another melody)
Rorate, caeli desuper
Wake, O Wake & Sleep No Longer
When The King Shall Come Again (this one was my obsession last Advent season --especially the third verse. What an image! "Now the deaf shall hear the dumb sing away their weeping; blind eyes see the injured come walking, running, leaping!" Like almost all hymns, it should not be performed at the dirge pace choirs and congregations drag them to, but like a march. Sing those lines in triumphant march tempo and imagine that day...)
There now, no excuses. It's by no means an exhaustive list, but let's have a more musical Advent from now on, shall we?
