There's something about here in those church bells in late December here in

Chile, Cambridge, Massachusetts that makes me think of Christmas.

I agree. The appeal of the bell seems to pierce the cold and warm the heart.

It reminds me of that Leonard Cohen song, you know, ring the bells that still can ring.

Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything and that's how the light gets in.

Thank God we have poets like Leonard Cohen.

Thank God indeed. Sometimes we need the poets to express what we're all feeling.

Now seeing this is our Christmas

special I thought would come to Cambridge to hear the bells that inspired one of the

greatest poets not just in New England history but American history.

This is the old stopping ground for none other

than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Oh, he's a giant for sure.

His name is sacred in Massachusetts.

So one of his poems was turned into a Christmas song.

Maybe not the most famous Christmas song of all time,

but some of the holiday giants like Burlives and Frank Sinatra

included their own versions of the song and their holiday albums.

And that modern group, the Civil Wars have a

haunting version of the song that's really becoming one of my new favorites.

But the lyrics most of us have heard leave out the darkest part of the story.

Well, there's always an undertone of darkness in Christmas, isn't there?

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