Joseph Was a Good Man

I’ve been thinking about that question my friend and colleague asked me the other day: Do you know any songs about Joseph?  I shared the few that I knew and found in my library of music books. But it still seems that Joseph is a bit slighted in the carols department. There are multiplied thousands of songs for Mary, for the shepherds, for the magi, for the angels, for the stars, for the animals … but relatively few for Saint Joseph.

So I decided to write one for him myself.  Here is “Joseph Was a Good Man” – sung to the tune “The Lone, Wild Bird”

Joseph was a good man, upright and true
and he did what the angel told him to;
he took as his bride
the virgin, Mary,
and Joseph loved her baby too.

Joseph took them both to Egypt land
to escape King Herod’s mighty hand;
when the tyrant died
Joseph knew he could
take his wife and the child home again.

After that we hear no more of him -
how he lived, how he died, the story dims,
but we sing with pride
of that good man
and we sing to God our Christmas hymns.




It ain’t much, I know, but it’s better than Christmas Shoes. *shudder.