#288: Good Christian Friends, Rejoice

Harmonization-wise, this has some big tenor-bass gaps, but right at the end it swerves to having them close together, a "third" apart on F and A. Except, there's a small F written in an octave lower--the small notation meaning basically "the basses can sing down here but if they can't sing that low, just sing the higher F." I'm not sure if I have a tag for this and/or how common it is.

Lyrics-wise, and we'll see this again, the humility of the manger scene among farm animals is summarized by "ox and ass before him bow." This was only translated in the 1800s so presumably the translator had a "teehee, I said 'ass'" moment.