Love is the Answer

Hot off the press, this heart-warming carol will bring some much-needed cheer this Christmas.

Soaring melodies and heartfelt lyrics seamlessly combine in this enchanting new carol from the pen of Thomas Hewitt Jones. Intended as an antidote to the gloom and confusion of the pandemic, Love is the Answer will inspire and uplift singers and audiences alike. A must-have addition to any choir’s Christmas celebrations this year.

COMPOSER NOTE Like my carol Follow Yonder Star and Can You Hear Me?, an anthem for kindness, Love is the Answer was composed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and is very much intended as an antidote to the gloom, confusion and negativity of that period. On the other hand, one beneficial outcome of lockdown and its privations was to remind us of the importance of friendship and family as the bedrock of our lives, and of choral singing as the essence of our musical community. The experience of Christmas in particular encapsulates the positive spirit of all three, and my own most vivid childhood memories are of the annual school nativity service, and of my invariably being enchanted by those carols that effortlessly married music and words. Subsequently, over the years and in each new choral piece, that harmonious relationship has remained my ideal. In Love is the Answer I especially endeavoured to recreate such a perfect union, setting my own specially written words seamlessly to a soaring melody with descant. In four verses with refrain, the poem retells the nativity story, with its shepherds and wise men, and with a concluding contemporary twist that will, I hope, inspire and uplift singers and audiences alike.