Found this on an old thread...... May save you some time if you wanted to use it....
This beautiful song was written by Cormac MacConnell, the brother of Mudcatter Chordstrangler (Mickey MacConnell) who has recorded it on his CD "Joined Up Writing." You can PM Mickey right here to order his superb recording.
Seamus
CHRISTMAS 1914 by Cormac MacConnell
In the year 1914 on Christmas Day, On the Western front the guns all died away. And lying in the mud on bags of sand We heard the German sing from No Man's Land. He had a tenor voice so clear and true; The words were strange, but every note we knew. A-soaring o'er the living, dead and damned, That soldier sang of peace from No Man's Land.
Chorus: Oh, Silent night, no cannons roar. A King is born of peace for ever more, All's calm, all's bright, all brothers hand in hand, A Soldier's song of peace from No Man's Land.
They slowly left their trenches, we left ours. Beneath tin hats the smiles bloomed like wild flowers. With photos, cigarettes and flasks of wine, We made a soldier's peace on that front line. Their singer was a lad of twenty-one; We begged another song before the dawn, And sitting amid carnage, death and fear, He sang again the song all longed to hear.
Chorus:
In the morning all the guns roared in the rain, And they killed us and we killed them again With bayonet, bomb and bullet, gas and flame And neither them nor us at at all to blame. There was heavy fighting all throughout that day. For one night's peace we bitterly did pay. That night they charged, we fought them hand to hand And I shot the lad who sang from No Man's Land. Chorus:
Oh, Silent night, no cannons roar, A king is born of peace for ever more. All's calm, all's bright, all brothers hand in hand, A soldier's song of peace from No Man's Land. O Silent night, Holy night, And his ghostly voice still rings As the young dead soldier sings Where the Captains and the Kings Built No Man's Land.