“It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” was written in 1849 by Edmund Sears, a New England pastor living in a time marked by social unrest and the aftermath of war. Unlike many carols that center on the Nativity scene itself, Sears wrote this as a reflection on a world aching for peace. His words focus on the contrast between heaven’s message of goodwill and humanity’s continued struggle; a theme that feels as timely now as it did then.
FOE’s reinterpretation leans into that tension. Instead of presenting the carol as a gentle holiday hymn, we rebuilt it with a somber, cinematic weight, bringing out the cry beneath the text. The arrangement blends atmospheric guitars, low-end drones, and restrained orchestral swells, giving the song a sense of vast space and quiet gravity.
Where the original offers a plea for peace, our version explores the ache behind that plea; a world listening for hope in the aftermath of its own noise. It’s a bridge between centuries: the same longing, carried into a new sound.
It came upon the midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, good will to men,
From heaven’s all-gracious King.”
The world in solemn stillness lay,
To hear the angels sing.
Still through the cloven skies they come
With peaceful wings unfurled,
And still their heavenly music floats
O’er all the weary world;
Above its sad and lowly plains,
They bend on hovering wing,
And ever o’er its Babel sounds
The blessed angels sing.
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing._
For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet seen of old,
When with the ever-circling years
Shall come the time foretold,
When peace shall over all the earth
Its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world send back the song
Which now the angels sing.