The story behind Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day is a narrative carol in the first person. Christ speaks. He calls the hearer my love and my true love, and he tells his life as a dance: birth from a virgin, a manger between an ox and an ass, baptism, the desert, the cross, the rising, and the return to the Father. The refrain is always the same invitation. Sing, O my love, this have I done for my true love.
William Sandys printed it in 1833 in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, from West Country traditional singing. It is probably older than that printing. The dance metaphor was already at home in medieval theology and in religious drama. The carol is grave and narrative. It is not a party dance, even though the word dance is in every stanza.
History and origins
Sandys was a lawyer and antiquary who gathered Christmas songs in the west of England before the Victorian carol revival had standardized a parish repertory. His 1833 book is one of the reasons a number of traditional pieces, including this one, have a firm printed starting point. He did not claim to have composed Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day. He claimed to have found it in tradition. Internal clues support an earlier life. The theology and the shape, a sacred autobiography in stanzas with a burden, resemble medieval carol form. How much earlier than 1833 is not fixed by a dated manuscript that everyone accepts. Say it may be older, and say Sandys is the first solid publication. That is the accurate pair of statements.
The speaker is Christ from the first line. Tomorrow shall be my dancing day is the announcement of the incarnation as an event about to be danced, and then the dance is narrated as already done for the beloved. My true love is the soul, or the church, or humankind addressed as one beloved. The stanzas move in order through the creed's story. He takes flesh of a virgin. He is laid in a manger, poor, between ox and ass. He is baptized, and the Father's voice is heard. He is led into the desert and tempted to turn stones to bread, which the carol calls an attempt to break the dance. Later stanzas, which a short concert sometimes cuts, go to the betrayal, the cross and the spear, the harrowing or the grave, the rising, and the ascent. The refrain never changes. Every episode was for the true love.
Medieval writers had already spoken of the divine life as a dance, a measured joy in which love leads and the soul is invited to follow. Religious plays sometimes used actual dancing. The carol inherits that symbolic world and makes it parish poetry in English. It is kin to the idea of a general dance at the end of the story, when the beloved is brought into the figure Christ has been dancing all along. Nothing in Sandys's text requires a ballroom. The steps are Bethlehem, Jordan, wilderness, Calvary, and the right hand of the Father.
Modern choirs met the carol again through the Oxford Book of Carols and through festival services, but the arrangement that fixed it for many late twentieth century singers is John Gardner's, from the 1960s, for choir and organ, with punchy rhythms that can mislead a listener into thinking the piece is a party. Gardner's harmony is copyrighted as an arrangement. The traditional words are not. His setting is a brilliant servant and a bad master if it erases the passion stanzas or the tenderness of my love. Folk revival singers, by contrast, often sing the Sandys text almost plainly, which reveals how many verses the story needs. Both approaches are hearing the same poem.
Full lyrics
Verse 1
Tomorrow shall be my dancing day;
I would my true love did so chance
To see the legend of my play,
To call my true love to my dance.
Refrain
Sing, O my love, O my love, my love, my love;
This have I done for my true love.
Verse 2
Then was I born of a virgin pure,
Of her I took fleshly substance;
Thus was I knit to man's nature,
To call my true love to my dance.
Verse 3
In a manger laid and wrapped I was,
So very poor, this was my chance,
Betwixt an ox and a silly poor ass,
To call my true love to my dance.
Verse 4
Then afterwards baptized I was;
The Holy Ghost on me did glance,
My Father's voice heard from above,
To call my true love to my dance.
Verse 5
Then on the cross hanged I was,
Where a spear to my heart did glance;
There issued forth both water and blood,
To call my true love to my dance.
Verse 6
Then up to heaven I did ascend,
Where now I dwell in sure substance
On the right hand of God, that man
May come unto the general dance.
The text above follows a standard public domain version. Singers will meet small changes from book to book, especially in folk carols.
Lyrics presented for educational and personal use. Sing along responsibly this holiday season!
Meaning and symbolism
The dance means a life lived in measure toward a beloved, not an escape from suffering. The carol is careful on this. Temptation tries to break the dance. The cross is part of the figure, not an interruption of an otherwise pleasant ballet. Water and blood, in the passion stanza, are the signs given for the true love. Rising and ascending complete the figure so the partner can be brought in. Call my true love to my dance is evangelism in the language of courtesy. Christ does not dance for his own display. The refrain says this have I done for my true love.
My love in the refrain is strikingly intimate for a doctrinal summary. The singer is asked to answer as the beloved, not only as a student of the creed. That is why the carol feels grave rather than cute. A Christmas pageant that uses only the manger stanza has a true excerpt and an incomplete dance. The ox and the silly poor ass, silly in the old sense of simple, place the birth in poverty. The same voice will later name the cross. The meaning is one person, one love, one sequence. Break the sequence and you have a different, smaller song.
Fun facts and statistics
- William Sandys printed the carol in 1833 in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern.
- He collected it from traditional singing, especially associated with the west of England.
- It is likely older than 1833, but a precise medieval manuscript date should not be invented.
- Christ is the speaker, and the hearer is addressed as my love and my true love.
- The refrain is Sing, O my love, this have I done for my true love.
- The narrative runs from the virgin birth and the manger through baptism, temptation, cross, and rising.
- The dance image has roots in medieval theology and religious drama.
- The carol is grave and narrative. It is not a party song.
- John Gardner's well known choir arrangement dates from the 1960s. The arrangement is newer than the traditional text.
Top 5 most popular renditions
West Country traditional singers
before 1833
Before print, the carol lived in oral tradition in the west of England, the country William Sandys mined for old Christmas songs. Singers carried a long first person narrative and a refrain anyone who loved the leader could join. Exact dates for those singings are not recorded song by song. The rendition is the reason Sandys could call the piece ancient and modern in the same book title: modern because newly printed, ancient because already known. A solo storyteller with a burden is still the clearest way to hear how the dance was first offered to a room.
West Country traditional singers
William Sandys
1833
Sandys's Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern of 1833 is the publication that fixed a full traditional text for later editors. He was an antiquary preserving what he had heard or been given, not a poet inventing a sacred ballet. From his pages the carol entered the stream that would feed the Oxford Book of Carols and parish revival. This printed rendition is the scholarly baseline. When versions differ in a line, Sandys is the place to check before calling a variant wrong. The 1833 book does not prove the song was born that year. It proves it was already worth saving.
William Sandys
Oxford Book of Carols
1928
The Oxford Book of Carols in 1928 put the dancing day into the hands of choirs that were rebuilding a serious English carol repertory. The editors understood it as narrative theology, a Christ who recites his own legend and asks for love in return. Their rendition is a practical choral edition of Sandys's tradition. It helped the piece leave specialist libraries. Congregations still found the length demanding, so the book also taught directors how to think in stanzas and refrain. Without that generation of editors, Gardner's later fireworks would have had a thinner public.
Oxford Book of Carols
John Gardner
1960s
John Gardner's arrangement for choir and organ, written in the 1960s, became the performance many British choirs treat as standard. Sharp rhythms, surprising harmonies, and an organ part that almost dances on its own can make a congregation sit up. The energy is a modern commentary on the word dance, and it is his copyrighted craft, not a newly discovered medieval rhythm. The traditional words remain the carol. A director using Gardner should still let the cross and the rising be heard. Speed without the passion stanza turns a creed into a showpiece and misses the true love.
John Gardner
Cathedral and folk revival singers
present
Today the carol lives in two honest ways. Cathedrals sing elaborate arrangements at lessons and carols. Folk singers and small choirs sing the Sandys narrative more plainly, often with more stanzas, letting the desert and the spear take the time they need. Both renditions serve the first person address if my love sounds like love. The present life of the song is secure because it is allowed to be grave. A Christmas program that includes it has chosen story over scenery, and the refrain will do the rest of the pastoral work.
Cathedral and folk revival singers
Sheet music
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Notes for singers
If you place Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day in a December service, a school program, or a living room sing, teach Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day before you add harmony. A confident melody lets guests enter on the refrain. Say the names when you introduce it. The words are credited to Traditional, and the music to Traditional. The year to remember is 1833, and the place to name is England.
This sits in the library as a folk carol. Let that tradition set the tempo. A lullaby loses its point if it is hurried. A dance carol loses its point if every syllable is precious. Leave a breath at the end of the verse so the next line feels chosen rather than chased.
William Sandys printed the carol in 1833 in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern. Hold that fact in the introduction you speak, not only in a program note. He collected it from traditional singing, especially associated with the west of England. Those two details give a listener a reason to hear the song as a made thing, not as wallpaper.
When the group is small, one voice can carry the verse and everyone can take the refrain. When the group is a choir, decide in advance whether you are telling a story or painting a picture. Story songs want clear words. Picture songs can bloom. Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day will tell you which it is after a single unaccompanied read through.
Questions readers ask
Christ speaks in the first person and calls the listener my love and my true love. He tells his own life as a dance he wants the beloved to join. The beloved is the soul, the church, or humanity addressed intimately. The refrain says that what he has done, he has done for that love. It is not a spectator's description of a party.
William Sandys printed it in 1833 in Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern, from traditional West Country singing. The form is probably older, in the line of medieval carol and of religious dance imagery, but a precise earlier manuscript date should not be invented. Sandys is the solid publication. Oral tradition is the likely life before the book.
No. After the virgin birth and the manger, traditional stanzas continue through baptism, temptation in the desert, the cross, and the rising and ascent. A concert that sings only the manger has an excerpt. The dance includes suffering. Temptation tries to break it. The refrain still says the whole sequence is for the true love.
The word dance is theological, drawn from a long Christian habit of picturing God's loving order and the soul's response as a dance. The mood of the poem is grave and narrative. John Gardner's popular twentieth century arrangement is rhythmic and exciting, and it is an arrangement, not the original mood in full. Words about the cross should not be skipped just to keep a performance cheerful.
Why this song endures
The refrain is one of the most haunting invitations in English carol literature, and haunting lines last. This have I done for my true love summarizes a creed in a lover's sentence. Communities that discover the carol rarely demote it back to the unused appendix. It gives Christmas a forward motion into the rest of the gospel, which is what the church year also does.
Sandys's 1833 book, the likelihood of earlier oral life, medieval dance theology, and a modern choral showpiece are layers that keep scholars and singers both busy. The song does not depend on settling the earliest date. It depends on the beloved still being addressed. As long as a choir will sing the hard middle of the story and not only the charming tomorrow, the dancing day remains a serious way to tell the gospel.