Music post: counting songs for Christmas
Dec. 18th, 2006 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
resonantThe kidlet is supposed to take a Santa hat to school today. We don't have a Santa hat.
"I can take that," they say, and point up to Otto, our model skull. For the season, Otto is wearing a crown that I made out of red fleece and metallic beads. We used to use it as the crown of the Lord of Misrule, the two times we celebrated Twelfth Night before the kidlet came along and preempted it with their birthday.
"You want to wear the crown of the Lord of Misrule to school instead of a Santa hat?" I say, and they say, "Sure. I'll tell them I got it off of the skull."
This may well be too odd even for Montessori.
Meanwhile, music.
I wish I knew why counting songs are particularly associated with Christmas! According to Martha Stewart Living, the Twelve Days song was published shortly after the American Revolution and was first used in schools as a memory exercise. (I think it would be cool to be the person who hunted down those little tidbits for MSL; they're often the best thing in the magazine.) But that doesn't explain the rest of them.
All eight songs in one zip file, 28MB.
Or:
Revels, The Twelve Days of Christmas, from The Christmas Revels. The old reliable.
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family,Twelve Days of Christmas, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. A different tune -- actually even more monotonous than the original version, since there's no change of melody at "Five golden rings," but plaintive and interesting.
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family, The Twelve Apostles, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. This is the mysterious countdown with "Nine for the nine bright shiners, eight for the gabbling rangers," etc.
Revels, Carol of the Twelve Days, from Rose & Thistle. Another mysterious countdown, this time done by a children's choir. "Three of them are strangers. Two of them are lily-white [stags?] clothed all in green-o."
Now three different songs on the theme of the seven joys of Mary:
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family, The Blessings of Mary, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. The kidlet used to like this as a bedtime song as a baby.
King's College Choir, Seven Joys of Mary, from O Come, All Ye Faithful.
Anonymous 4, The Seven Rejoices of Mary, from Wolcom Yule. My favorite of the bunch, though I like them all.
And finally:
Choir of the Caja de San Fernando of Seville and Jerez, Andalusian Carol: El Pollo, from the BBC collection "Music for Christmas." I can't actually understand more than a couple of words of this, but the spouse listened to about half of it and said, "Ah. This is one of those songs."
edited to add one more I'd forgotten about, which is not in the Zip file: Joan Osborne, Children, Go Where I Send Thee, from the Hear Music compilation "Snow Angels." Joan, as you know, has a voice that will raise all the small hairs on the back of your neck, but that makes people like me with ordinary voices too shy to sing along.
edited 2020 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns
"I can take that," they say, and point up to Otto, our model skull. For the season, Otto is wearing a crown that I made out of red fleece and metallic beads. We used to use it as the crown of the Lord of Misrule, the two times we celebrated Twelfth Night before the kidlet came along and preempted it with their birthday.
"You want to wear the crown of the Lord of Misrule to school instead of a Santa hat?" I say, and they say, "Sure. I'll tell them I got it off of the skull."
This may well be too odd even for Montessori.
Meanwhile, music.
I wish I knew why counting songs are particularly associated with Christmas! According to Martha Stewart Living, the Twelve Days song was published shortly after the American Revolution and was first used in schools as a memory exercise. (I think it would be cool to be the person who hunted down those little tidbits for MSL; they're often the best thing in the magazine.) But that doesn't explain the rest of them.
All eight songs in one zip file, 28MB.
Or:
Revels, The Twelve Days of Christmas, from The Christmas Revels. The old reliable.
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family,Twelve Days of Christmas, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. A different tune -- actually even more monotonous than the original version, since there's no change of melody at "Five golden rings," but plaintive and interesting.
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family, The Twelve Apostles, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. This is the mysterious countdown with "Nine for the nine bright shiners, eight for the gabbling rangers," etc.
Revels, Carol of the Twelve Days, from Rose & Thistle. Another mysterious countdown, this time done by a children's choir. "Three of them are strangers. Two of them are lily-white [stags?] clothed all in green-o."
Now three different songs on the theme of the seven joys of Mary:
Mike and Peggy Seeger and family, The Blessings of Mary, from American Folk Songs for Christmas. The kidlet used to like this as a bedtime song as a baby.
King's College Choir, Seven Joys of Mary, from O Come, All Ye Faithful.
Anonymous 4, The Seven Rejoices of Mary, from Wolcom Yule. My favorite of the bunch, though I like them all.
And finally:
Choir of the Caja de San Fernando of Seville and Jerez, Andalusian Carol: El Pollo, from the BBC collection "Music for Christmas." I can't actually understand more than a couple of words of this, but the spouse listened to about half of it and said, "Ah. This is one of those songs."
edited to add one more I'd forgotten about, which is not in the Zip file: Joan Osborne, Children, Go Where I Send Thee, from the Hear Music compilation "Snow Angels." Joan, as you know, has a voice that will raise all the small hairs on the back of your neck, but that makes people like me with ordinary voices too shy to sing along.
edited 2020 to retroactively correct the kidlet's gender pronouns