Angels We Have Heard On High

Leanna Crawford performs this traditional French carol in its simplest form, without an added bridge or reworked verse — just angels, shepherds, and the repeated Latin refrain. 'Shepherds, why this jubilee? Why your joyous strains prolong?' keeps the carol's structure as a question posed to the shepherds themselves, inviting the listener to ask the same thing alongside them rather than simply being told the answer.

'Come to Bethlehem and see Him whose birth the angels sing, come, adore on bended knee' follows Luke 2:15's account of the shepherds deciding to go see 'this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us' — an invitation extended from the angels to the shepherds, and now from the carol to whoever's singing it. The repeated 'Gloria, in excelsis Deo' keeps circling back to the same declaration throughout, letting repetition do the work that additional verses might otherwise be asked to do.