"I Heard The Bells" After My Greatest Loss

On this episode of Christmas Merry and Bright, Raymond Arroyo, an award-winning broadcaster, New York Times best-selling author and acclaimed vocalist, unveils the hidden backstory of "I Heard The Bells" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and how it was birthed from his greatest loss.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Raymond Arroyo and that is a cut from my
new album Christmas Merry and Bright with the Nola Player's boy.
I think you can hear that on the mountain. What
a great band and a family really is what this
whole season's about. From the Holy Family to your family.
This next song is about family. It's called I Heard
the Bells. It's a beautiful Broadway style song with three acts,

(00:21):
and it captures something very true for some of us.
Christmas can be a difficult time, laced with sadness, even pain.
Do you know the name Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He was
a great American poet. Longfellow lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His
is a sad story and this piece is about finding
Christmas hope on the far side of tragedy. One afternoon

(00:45):
in eighteen sixties, Longfellow was taking a nap. His wife
was near him at the fireplace, and her dress and
all her petticoats caught fire. He was awakened by her screams.
Longfellow jumped up, tried to put the blaze out with
a rug and his own body. His wife's burns were
so severe she died the next day. For the rest

(01:05):
of his life. He wore a heavy beard to hide
the scars on his face. Then his oldest son, Charles,
secretly ran off to d C and joined the Union Army.
While in the war, he was shot through one shoulder,
the bullet exiting the other, and Charles was nearly paralyzed.
Longfellow collected his wounded son, took him back to Cambridge, and,

(01:26):
on Christmas Day in eighteen sixty three, hearing bells toll
from a local church down the block, he writes this poem,
the Haunting I heard the bells