Music post: counting songs for Christmas

[resonant]

The 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

Comments

[saffronhouse.livejournal.com]

What fun! thanks. Your commentary is as much fun as the music.

[eruthros]

This is the mysterious countdown with "Nine for the nine bright shiners, eight for the gabbling rangers," etc.

Green Grow the Rushes-o? Some of the lyrics of the song are potentially meaningful. Twelve is clear, and then eleven for the eleven who went to heaven = twelve apostles minus Judas, ten's clear, nine's baffling (nine orders of angels?), eight was originally the "April rainers," though mostly people now sing it as "eight bold rangers," and probably represents the Hyades stars that appear at about the same time as the April rains. Seven stars = too many possible explanations to list, from actual stars to the stars at Jesus' right hand. Six makes no sense. Five for the symbols at your door is probably for pentagrams as wards. Four's obvious. And then three, two, and one, are a mess.

I sang this song at a wedding, once, and we ended up spending a rather long time trying to work the lyrics out.

(Also, the Mike and Penny Seeger has unusual lyrics for some parts of the song, which I know as going "I'll sing you twelve-o, green grow the rushes-o, what is your twelve-o? Twelve for the twelve apostles, eleven for the eleven went up to heaven, ten for the ten commandments, nine for the nine bright shiners, eight for the April rainers, seven for the seven stars in the sky, six for the six proud waters, five for the symbols at your door, four for the gospel makes, three, three, the riiiiivaalls, two, two, the lily-white boys, clothed all in green-o, and one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.)

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Interestingly (well, to me!) we Jews also have a counting holiday song - but for Passover. "Echad, mi yodea" which is roughly the equivalent of the "Carol of the Twelve Days," I think! I tried to find you the song as a soundfile but my computer won't play the few versions I found: here are the (English) lyrics (http://members.aol.com/wiseacrebk/Haggadah/19hymns.html#anchor324944). (It's a weird translation, I think. Fruitful matriarchs? Believing patriarchs? The Hebrew just numbers them: four are the matriarchs, three are the patriarchs, etc.)

And speaking of, here is another version of your Twelve Days: Great Big Sea - Come and I Will Sing You (http://download.yousendit.com/33DEF49D1F181BBB). They sing "lily-white babes," but they also sing "drivers" rather than "strangers," so I really don't know what the words are supposed to be.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

Oh! Then this song is approximately the same as the Carol of the Twelve Days. I've uploaded another version ("Come and I Will Sing You") below.

[skuf.livejournal.com]

Do you have "The Twelve Days of Christmas" by John Denver & The Muppets? Because otherwise I would have to remedy that!

[etben.livejournal.com]

oooh, neat! I haven't heard most of those before, so this was a lot of fun - thanks so much for putting them up!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I have the GBS already -- thanks! The Seeger family sings, "Three, three thrivers," and elsewhere I've heard "Three are the rivals." (And wouldn't you think three would be the Trinity? The song bears very strong indications of being pre-Christian, with the Christian imagery inserted later.)

Oh, wow, that reminds me that I need to include Children, Go Where I Send Thee. (http://www.sendspace.com/file/hix9fu) That one gives you "Three for the Hebrew children," but doesn't tell you which ones!

I like the Passover counting song. What are sections of Mishnah?

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I do, but others might not have experienced the joy of Miss Piggy singing "Five ... goold ... rings!"

[eruthros]

I was just about to comment and note that the song I call "Green Grow The Rushes-o" is also sung as the Twelve Apostles, Come and I Will Sing You, Carol of the Twelve Numbers, and Carol of the Twelve Days, in various readings of the lines.

I think it's great fun, as a song, but unless people do the Really Really Old-School version, I can never sing along, because I'm always going "wait, what? pallbearers? where did the pallbearers come from?" Probably also reasonable readings of the lines, but not the ones I'm familiar with.

[giglet.livejournal.com]

"You want to wear the crown of the Lord of Misrule to school instead of a Santa hat?" I say, and she says, "Sure. I'll tell them I got it off of the skull."

This may well be too odd even for Montessori.

On the other hand, I think it makes perfect sense for your child (knowing nothing about her except that she is your child).

My kid would be delighted to wear the crown of the Lord of Misrule to school. And he'd make sure he told the principal what it was before it was confiscated.

[moonpupy.livejournal.com]

You don't have Alan Sherman's The Twelve Day of Christmas, but, then again, neither do I. They just keep playing it on "Special Xmas" on XM radio.

"And a Japanese transistor radio."

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

The Mishnah is sort of biblical commentary - it's the oral laws written down, if that makes sense. There are six books of it, I guess (kind of like the five books of Moses).

[coreopsis.livejournal.com]

I'm grabbing the Joan Osbourne file. Partly because I love your description of her voice and want to listen to her, but I seem to have lost the one CD of hers I used to have.

[kassrachel.livejournal.com]

Your kidlet is awesome.

On the musical front, my own favorite counting song is from the Passover season -- "Echad Mi Yodea" ("Who Knows One?".) The first verse asks, "Who knows One? I know One! One is our God, in heaven and in earth." And then "Who knows two? I know two; two are the tablets of the law, one is our God..." And then three (two, one), and so on. I don't know any recordings of it, though.

Do you know "Come and I Will Sing You," a counting song that Great Big Sea recorded on their latest album of Newfoundland traditional tunes? It's clearly a variation on the same theme as the Seeger Family track "The Twelve Apostles," but melodically it's quite different. I'd be happy to send it to you if you want.

[katherine]

I sung "Green Grow the Rushes-O" back in grade school (and remember being very confused by it), but I hadn't known it is one of variants. Interesting.

Also, your icon gave me a jolt.

[isiscolo.livejournal.com]

It's on YouTube! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4j1paMC5SM)

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

Yay!!!

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you! I'm always excited for your music posts at this time of year, I've gotten such great stuff from them.

musical music!

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

Thanks, angeline. I think I got Jesus Christ, The Apple Tree from you last year. It's very lovely. I'm looking forward to these songs!

[exceptinsects.livejournal.com]

huh. My dad and I always sing this song, but WE say "nine for the nine who dressed so fine" and "six for the six proud walkers". We do say "April rainers" and "three three the rivals" though.

This is totally fascinating, that no one seems to know what the actual words are.

[darkrhiannon.livejournal.com]

Please please please, post a pic of the crown. I'd love to make three for my grrls to wear next year--Santa Hats are so insipid! I think it's a marvelous idea of the kidlet's!!

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I took a photo, but it may be a while before we get it developed. (Yes! Film! We are so twentieth century!)

I sewed it myself out of red felt, and I really just improvised it. Given my lack of spatial skills, I was astonished that it came out as well as it did.

First I folded a piece of felt in half back-to-back and drew a regular four-spiked crown on it, using the fold as the flat bottom. (You could unfold a Burger King crown for a guide.) I sewed it together most of the way, turned it right-side-out through the un-sewed bit, and stitched the un-sewed bit together by hand, and sewed the ends together to make it into a ring.

Then I made the part that goes over the top of the head by basically cutting out a big circle and putting four darts in it to make it sort of curve. (As I said: Astonished that this worked.) I sewed that to the inside of the ring.

Then I bought these gold and silver beads the size of buttons and sewed them all around the bottom.

It's cool-looking, machine-washable, and quite comfortable to wear. Plus it looks good on a model skull. If the photos do come out, I'll scan one and post it.

[darkrhiannon.livejournal.com]

Awesome! Thanks.

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

Possibly the three Hebrew children of the book of Daniel (Daniel's companions), who thrived in captivity (on a raw-food vegan diet) in Daniel 1.6-20. Although you've very right that this would be an odd thing to think of for three when there are much more obvious associations.

Thanks for the music, and the discussion. I always enjoy these posts.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yep, she's exactly like you'd think, except a little more socially adept than her parents.

And at the singalong, where they were all supposed to wear their hats, she lent the Crown of Misrule to a rather Draco Malfoy-looking older boy who'd either forgotten to bring a Santa hat or was too cool to wear one.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

This time of year I'm more grateful than usual for the CD player in my car, and for not working in an office with piped-in music.