In the Bleak Midwinter' Beautifully Sung by Twin Sisters

Twin sisters from the UK, Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas, beautifully sing the classic song ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ together.

“In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago”

The lyrics to ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ were first written as a poem by Christina Rossetti. The poem was published under the title ‘A Christmas Carol’ in the January 1872 issue of Scribner's Monthly. The poem became a true Christmas carol in 1906 when Gustav Holst composed a melody for the words to be set to.

In this video, Ward Thomas, the country music duo that Catherine and Lizzy Ward Thomas created, sing their own version ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. Their voices blend together in a lovely way, and they have such nice harmonies throughout the song.

The music is hauntingly beautiful, and they pair the song with images of war in 1914. “If we were living in 1914, all the boys we know would have been fighting in the trenches,” writes Ward Thomas in the video. “It would have been a terrifying and miserable experience for them. It would have been a frightening and anxious time for us, too.”

The video goes through scenes of World War I in 1914, showing images of young soldiers on the battlefield and in the trenches, huddled around each other and tending to the wounded. Then the video starts to focus on the Christmas Truce of World War I.

“The truce of Christmas 1914 was a unique moment in the war when soldiers on both sides laid down their weapons and met in no-man’s land to share food and play football,” writes Ward Thomas. “A game can mean nothing or everything. 100 years on, it reminds all of us of the presence of humanity.”