We Shall Fare Well

"We Shall Fare Well"

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"We Shall Fare Well" was a hymn that Wilfred Mott heard when he chanced upon a boy's choir singing it during rehearsals for a Yuletide performance. At the church where the practise was ongoing, Mott noticed that one of the stained glass panes had an image of a police box within. While the hymn was being sung, Mott had a brief encounter with a mysterious woman who suggested that the stained glass referred to an ancient encounter between a demon and "a sainted physician". (TV: The End of Time)

Its lyrics included:

Out of the shadows,

And into our lives,

There is always a pathway for fear to arrive.

But with you in our hearts,

With you in our lives,

We shall fare well,

Fare well,

Farewell...

Behind the scenes

The song is deceptive in that it seems to be a traditional Christmas carol of some kind. In fact, it was composed by Murray Gold and performed by the David Temple-directed Crouch End Festival Chorus especially for The End of Time. It serves as a kind of musical "foreshadowing" for the original song with ends the story, "Vale Decem". Indeed, it points to that later song, which also ends with multiple refrains of "farewell" and contains the word "farewell" — vale is Latin for farewell — throughout.