We Wish You a Merry Christmas

About this arrangement

The best-known verse of We Wish You a Merry Christmas, in G major and 3/4, with one pickup note on “We”. The right hand sits with the thumb on E and fingers on E, F sharp, G, A and B; when the tune dips to D, the thumb just reaches down one key. Bar 5 goes one note higher, to C, so the hand slides up one key for that bar and back again in bar 6. Pairs of quavers come on “you a mer-ry” in bars 1, 3 and 5. The left hand plays three chords from the G position, each held for the whole bar: G (G B D), C (G C E) and D7 (F sharp C D). Remember the key signature: every F in this piece is F sharp, the black key.

Practice tip: Each “wish you a mer-ry” starts one step higher than the last: on G, then A, then B. Spot the pattern and the tune almost plays itself. Keep the quavers light and even, and let “hap-py new year” relax very slightly at the end.

The words

We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, and a happy new year.

A short history

We Wish You a Merry Christmas is a traditional song from the West Country of England. It comes from the old custom of carol singers going from house to house at Christmas and being rewarded with food and drink, which is why later verses demand figgy pudding and refuse to leave until they get some. In the West Country “figgy pudding” meant a pudding made with raisins or plums, not necessarily figs. The greeting itself is far older than the song: “a merry Christmas and a happy new year” turns up in English letters from the early 1700s.

The song was almost unknown outside the West Country until 1935, when Arthur Warrell, a composer and lecturer at the University of Bristol, arranged it for the University of Bristol Madrigal Singers, who sang it in concert that December. Oxford University Press published his arrangement the same year, and from there it spread around the English-speaking world. It is missing from the big carol collections of the 1800s and from The Oxford Book of Carols (1928).

Quick facts

Tune

Traditional English (West Country), first printed 1935

Words

Traditional English (West Country)

Level

Beginner (one hand position, simple left hand)

Key

G major

Time signature

3/4

Length

8 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Cheerfully, crotchet = 116

Hands

Both hands on the grand staff: right hand on the treble staff, left hand on the bass staff

Copyright

Public domain tune and words; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal, church and classroom use

Questions and answers