{"id":31863,"date":"2020-12-09T13:18:59","date_gmt":"2020-12-09T20:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/?p=31863"},"modified":"2020-12-09T11:32:48","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T18:32:48","slug":"what-child-is-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/what-child-is-this\/","title":{"rendered":"Best New Christmas Music: What Child is This by The Piano Guys"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>What Child is This?<\/em> asks a <a href=\"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/celebrating-20-years-of-the-merry-forums\/\">Christmas<\/a> question that many artists have attempted to answer. The Piano Guys answer it well &#8211; without even using its famous lyrics.<\/p>\n<p>We will always lay claim to being the first in line when it comes to the Piano Guys because we&#8217;re Jon Schmidt fans first. Jon&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/celebrating-20-years-of-the-merry-forums\/\">Christmas<\/a> concerts back in the day (featuring his parents, no less) were such fun and heartfelt events.<\/p>\n<p>But if there is one constant that makes the Piano Guys so watchable and listenable it&#8217;s this: simplicity.<\/p>\n<p>There is always reverence and fidelity to the original written work and this version of <em>What Child is This<\/em> showcases that nicely. It&#8217;s pensive, joyful and eye-opening&#8230;in a simple way:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lJ_o85Byb-g\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>What Child is This<\/em> is a good example of new wine in old bottles. The melody is an ancient folk tune known as &#8220;Greensleeves&#8221;. But the words we know and repeat with each <a href=\"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/celebrating-20-years-of-the-merry-forums\/\">Christmas<\/a> season were written in the mid-19th century by an insurance salesman.<\/p>\n<p>His name was William Chatteron Dix and he wrote the new words to Greensleeves while recovering from a health crisis that rejuvenated his faith.<\/p>\n<p>The lyrics of the carol are taken from a poem written by Dix called &#8220;The Manger Throne&#8221;. The part of the poem that was utilized as the song&#8217;s lyrics consist of three stanzas in total. The first verse poses a rhetorical question in the first half, with the response coming in the second half. The second verse contains another question that is answered, while the final verse is a universal appeal to everyone urging them &#8220;to accept Christ.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>For the Piano Guys this song continues a tradition of supplying us with thoughtful <a href=\"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/celebrating-20-years-of-the-merry-forums\/\">Christmas<\/a> arrangements that inspire and bring <a href=\"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/sneaking-christmas\/\">peace<\/a>. We&#8217;re grateful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What Child is This? asks a Christmas question that many artists have attempted to answer. The Piano Guys answer it well &#8211; without even using its famous lyrics. We will always lay claim to being the first in line when it comes to the Piano Guys because we&#8217;re Jon Schmidt fans first. Jon&#8217;s Christmas concerts [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","iawp_total_views":20,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2],"tags":[472,858],"class_list":["post-31863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christmas-music","category-christmas-news","tag-piano-guys","tag-william-chatterton-dix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mymerrychristmas.com\/x\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}