Mary's Boy Child
For me, Mary's Boy Child is one of the most distinctively remembered and deeply loved songs of Christmas. Harry Belafonte's warm, refined delivery, the easy Caribbean-inflected rhythm and the familiar Nativity story gave it an unmistakable place in the season.
The song also prompted an interesting debate. Its opening associates the birth of Jesus with Christmas Day, while the Bible itself gives no date for the Nativity. For some Christians this distinction mattered greatly; for others, the language was simply part of the tradition through which Christmas had come to commemorate Christ's birth. What fascinated me was where the song went next.
Mary's Boy Child quickly moves beyond the question of when Jesus was born to the much larger question of what his birth means. Its central message is about life and hope made possible through the coming of Christ. The calendar question remains interesting, but it is not the destination. Here, theology is being advanced beautifully in song.
Jester Hairston, the distinguished American composer and choral arranger, adapted a calypso-style rhythm he had previously used for a song written with West Indian guests in mind. Harry Belafonte's 1956 recording brought a powerful Caribbean association to it. His interpretation is graceful and unhurried; the rhythm never overwhelms the sacred story. Later versions, notably Boney M's, introduced the song to another generation.
The Caribbean has never merely received Christmas traditions from elsewhere. We have also made Christmas sound like ourselves — through parang and soca-parang, calypso and soca, reggae, folk music, choral and church traditions, and distinctive local forms from one community to another. The result is not one Caribbean Christmas sound, but many. Mary's Boy Child belongs within that inheritance while achieving something remarkable: it helped carry a Caribbean-inflected Christmas sound around the world.
It holds faith and festivity, theology and tradition, Bethlehem and the Caribbean in the same musical embrace. The theology rides easily upon the rhythm; the ancient story feels fresh; and Christmas acquires a distinctly Caribbean pulse.
LISTEN FOR: The gentle calypso-inflected movement beneath Belafonte's performance — the remarkable ease with which celebration and proclamation travel together.