Worst carol nomination

[qatarperegrine]

Tonight was the first rehearsal of the Doha Singers. We sang some really cool Christmas music -- my favorites were Boris Ord's "Adam lay ybounden," and a bouncy one called "Ring-a the News" in which no two consecutive bars are in the same time signature.

I am, however, already prepared to nominate my LEAST FAVORITE SONG of the season. (For last concert, my least favorite was the lullaby to "my bonny wee doo." <gag>)

Here are the lyrics of my new least favorite; I'll have to let you imagine the appropriate music.

Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo.
Hoo, hoo, hoo.
When was the baby born? (Won't you tell me?)

[Choir continues hoo-hooing through the solo lines, which are the questions.]

Tell me, when was the baby born?
On the twenty-fifth day of December.
I said, tell me, when was the baby born?
On the twenty-fifth day of December.

Not January, February, no, no, no.
Not March, April or May.
No, no, not June, July, not August, September, October, November,
Oh no.

I said, tell me, when was the baby born?
On the twenty-fifth day of December.
A-won't you tell me, when did the angels sing?
On the twenty-fifth day of December.

I'll leave out the Coda, as it's pretty much the whole song again, but with "When did the star shine bright in Bethlehem" as the question.

You know, I could cope with the inanity of the lyrics and the insipidness of the music, if only Jesus had been born on the twenty-fifth day of December. But he wasn't (oh, no, no, no, with a hoo hoo for good measure).

So I've decided to dedicate my personal singing of this carol to Sir Isaac Newton, who was born on the twenty-fifth day of December. If that gets old, I'll sing it to the memory of Anwar Sadat. Or maybe Mithras. I'm pretty sure angels sang at all those births. Karl Rove was also born on the twenty-fifth day of December, but I will not be singing to him.

Comments

every year

[andreas_schaefer]

when the sickly sweetness gets too much for me ( what with the christmas muzak and the open-air-christmas markets ) I dig out a chrismas CD recorded by a local punk band. Just to take the taste away. Their rendition of "little drummer boy" or "Silent Night" cures the worst symptoms.
( my personal favorites are Bachs Christmas oratorio and "Transeamus" by a nearly unknown composer, following family tradition in both cases )

Re: every year

[kit-ping.livejournal.com]

Which nearly unknown composer?

Re: every year

[rabbi-t.livejournal.com]

When in doubt Google (especially with unusual spellings).
http://ingeb.org/spiritua/transeam.html

Re: every year

[kit-ping.livejournal.com]

But if I googled everything, how would I make conversation in comment forums? O:)

Re: every year

[qatar.livejournal.com]

I'm rather fond of Trans-Siberian Orchestra's "Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)" and some bad-in-a-fun-way techno remixes of The Nutcracker.... But my personal favorites also follow family tradition -- Conditor alme siderum, Verbum caro factum est, Riu riu chiu, the non-sanitized version of the Coventry carol, and other fablulous medieval music.

Mostly what gets me is that some of our civilization's most beautiful, moving, glorious music has been written for Christmas and Easter, and yet church choirs get stuck singing crap like "The Twenty-Fifth Day of December." :-(

[y-pestis.livejournal.com]

Maybe you can keep yourself amused by changing "hoo hoo" to "foo foo" but doing it subtly enough that nobody notices.

So what calendar did they use in those days? The Jewish calendar, presumably... Maybe you can suggest to the choir director that they reinterpret the song into the appropriate calendar.

o/` On the first day of Succot, my true love sent to me...