Coventry Carol

Coventry Carol

Author: BBC Radio 4 December 25, 2019 Duration: 27:33

Performed as part of the mystery plays, the 'Coventry Carol' is from the Pageant of the Shearman and Taylors and tells the story of the Slaughter of The Innocents.

A copy of the manuscript survived a fire in Birmingham Library in 1879 by sheer chance. Musician Ian Pittaway describes seeing the play in the ruins of Coventry cathedral in the 1980s - the drama was so powerful it still moves him to tears.

The carol was sung on Christmas Day in 1940 in a live broadcast to the Empire just six weeks after the bombing of Coventry that destroyed the city's cathedral.

Journalist Donna Marmestein tells of how the carol transformed how she felt about loss in her family.

Composer and performer Tori Amos describes what inspired her cover version of the song. Amy Hanson from the Small Steps Charity talks about how much her mother loved the carol. The children from the school her charity supports in Kenya sing their version of the song.

Roxanne Burroughs explains about how her daughter Kaitlyn came to have the carol sung at her funeral.

The soloist is Samantha Lewis; early music is from The Night Watch; Reading Phoenix choir and Southern Voices sing the carol and the children's choir is from the Rehabilitation centre Immanuel Afrika in Nairobi, Kenya.

Series about pieces of music with a powerful emotional impact.

Producer: Sara Conkey

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Christmas Day 2019.


There’s a certain piece of music that, when you hear it, seems to stop time. It might be a melody from your childhood, a song that played at a pivotal moment, or a composition that simply reaches into your chest and grips your heart. Soul Music, from BBC Radio 4, is built around that very phenomenon. This isn’t a program about genres or charts; it’s an intimate exploration of why specific pieces of music carry such profound emotional weight. Each episode focuses on a single, iconic work-from classical adagios to folk ballads, from film scores to pop anthems. The podcast weaves together the voices of people whose lives have been indelibly marked by that music: listeners share personal, often moving stories of grief, joy, love, and remembrance, while composers and performers might shed light on the piece’s creation. You’ll hear the music itself, of course, but framed in a way that reveals its deeper resonance in human experience. It’s a quiet, thoughtful series that reminds us how soundtracks our inner lives. Tuning into this podcast feels like being part of a conversation about the invisible threads that connect us all through notes and rhythms, exploring how a sequence of sounds can become a vessel for collective memory and feeling.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Soul Music
Podcast Episodes
Benedictus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:39
Sir Karl Jenkins' Benedictus is the penultimate movement from his anti-war mass, The Armed Man. Written twenty-five years ago this year and performed over three thousand times, Sir Karl dedicated it to the victims of the…
Lovely Day by Bill Withers [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:41
"Lovely Day" was released in 1977. Its simple blissful melody masks profound lyrics which on closer examination offer hope and solace to many fans of the song. Some of them share their stories here of what it means to th…
Tender [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:42
"Tender is the night lying by your side / Tender is the touch of someone that you love too much..." - Chris Lightfoot will always associate Blur's song 'Tender' with his first big love. A relationship he moved across the…
Diamonds and Rust [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:51
“Well, I'll be damned, Here comes your ghost again…”Joan Baez, also known as the "Queen of Folk", is halfway through writing a song one day when she gets a call from Bob Dylan. It’s 1974; almost 10 years after their rela…
Tiny Dancer [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:42
Elton John's slow burner is now one of his most beloved tracks. Released in 1971 during a prolific period for Elton and Bernie Taupin, many people see themselves in the lyrics.Eliza Hewitt grew up in a strict household i…
Northern Sky [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:49
"I never felt magic crazy as this....."For some it's a beacon of hope, for others a metaphor for love. 'Northern Sky' is the penultimate track on Nick Drake's 1971 album 'Bryter Layter'. The sound was shaped by the Velve…
I Can See Clearly Now [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:51
"I can see clearly now the rain is gone / I can see all obstacles in my way / Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind / It's gonna be a bright / Bright sunshiny day"I Can See Clearly Now was written by the Houston-bor…
Someone to Watch Over Me [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:43
Written by George Gershwin for the musical Oh Kay, Someone To Watch Over Me has endured as a tender ballad about searching for someone special. It has been recorded by many different artists from Ella Fitzgerald to Willi…
Sweet Thing [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:37
Sweet Thing by Van Morrison has an atmosphere full of tenderness, wonder and joy. But underneath this, there a feeling of transience, a melancholy sense of things coming to an end, and of inevitable change. It was writte…
Songs My Mother Taught Me [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:47
Antonin Dvorak wrote his Gypsy Songs in 1880. He was passionate about the folk music of his native Bohemia and set a poem by Czech poet Adolf Heyduk to music. Songs My Mother Taught Me is the fourth song in the cycle.Son…