How well do you know your Christmas Carols?

[Unorthodox]

So. 


Got a call Saturday evening.  By older brother will be playing in church and they want me to come. 

Alright, let me decode the levels here:

• Older brother is the guitar player of the house.  It's been a long running joke he can never play a complete song, as he would constantly just play little riffs. 
• The LDS church a couple years ago declared stringed instruments taboo in their services.  Special permission needed to play one. 
• LDS doesn't hold Church on Christmas, so this would be the Christmas program.  Any bishop is free to do what they want for this service, but it's usually just music. 
• Brother making an effort, I pretty much must go...
• Brother plays a Medley, so he's still never played a complete song in my book.   
• After my Brother plays, the choir starts...Ward level Choirs are hit and miss.  This one had some overzealous females. 
• I wanted to kick their organist OFF the organ (my instrument, and by extension the piano). Music being expensive, my 1960s book of classical carols was a common go-to for me learning, and I have 240 carols stuck in my brain permanently as a result. 
• Choir director managed to make Angels We Have Heard on High down right REVERENT.    ???
  
• Audience to join the Choir on the final verse of the final song:  O Holy Night. 
• O Holy Night is NOT in the LDS hymn book.   
  
• NO ONE knew the words.  (and you don't want me singing)
  

Been a season of carols for us, this being the last.  Kyle's choir in several concerts, another concert for hEt's work fundraiser. 

One more family party tonight, then 2 I'm in control of at our house, and one at my parents left to survive. 

[Rusty Edge]

I can't read music. I have a sort of mathematical approach to it. It's like fractions. But I'm tone deaf.
Well, now I'm hearing impaired, too. So my singing sucks.

I started memorizing hymns and carols before I could read.

I have a pretty good memory for rhymes.
That is becoming increasingly handy, because arm's length is mighty marginal when it comes to reading hymnals without glasses.

Because of the poetry, I get irritated when people don't sing the whole song. Yeah, it's okay to stop at the first verse of the national anthem, but it really sets me off when we are singing the 1st and 4th verses of , say, the Battle Hymn of the Republic.  Want to save time? Sing the first two verses or sing fewer songs.

And another thing! The last restoration of "It's a Small World" in The Magic Kingdom doesn't use the second verse. The song is repetitive as it is. It's a round.

My wife's not very precise with lyrics. Her "itsy bitsy spider" tends to climb up a waterfall. Irritating, but she sings so softly that I can scarcely hear her in church. I guess it all evens out. She's an ex 2nd chair cello, and she can't stand any off-key singing.

I'm dreading Christmas eve candlelight service. Our congregation has become "The peace of the Lord" handshake crazy. Half of them leave their pews and try to shake hands with everybody else,  to work the whole room. They are determined, especially if they haven't seen you in a while. This is more than a 5 minute ordeal. Plus there are visiting kids and grand-kids. It's hard not to catch a cold as a result. We stopped the scriptural common communion cup in the interest of health, and now we go crazy with this.

This is more than just an inconvenience-

I have two issues with being sick. 1) lung problems. One leads to the other, no simple thing in my particular case. 2) I'm a regular blood donor. I try to schedule near the major holidays, when blood supplies are critically low because everybody else can't be bothered, and car wrecks are high because of parties and drunk drivers. I'm scheduled for in between Christmas and New Year's Eve. I can't donate if I'm sick!


Anyway, while I relate to the church thing in terms of lyrics more than music, to me one of the most important things about church is consistency. Maybe it's the quote " I am the same, yesterday, today, and tomorrow." Maybe it's the idea that I am singing the same stuff my ancestors sang 100s of years ago, but I like my consistency.

And I feel your pain.

[ColdWizard]

The only time I did Christmas carols was elementary school music class. Plus I'm not musically inclined and can't sing.

[Valka]

I know the first verses of many of them by heart. Some of them I know all the way through.

Another organ player here. I can read music, but prefer to play by ear and when I was doing my Western Board exams I preferred to memorize everything. That way I wouldn't risk relying on the sheet music and making mistakes if I lost my place.

"Angels We Have Heard On High" has a LOT of chord changes... if you play it in an interesting way, and not the bland, boring way I usually hear.

"O Holy Night" was one of my grandmother's favorites. I'd crank up the volume on it and she enjoyed that - same with songs like "Amazing Grace" and a few others. And for some reason she was fond of "Ring of Fire" (Johnny Cash). So I learned that one, too.

Nowadays I don't play (the pedals on the organ don't work and it's damn expensive to get those fixed). What I do now, though, is write filk music.

Lots and lots of filk music based on Christmas carols. So when I'm in a store and "Good King Wenceslaus" starts, I automatically start thinking:

"Doctor Bones McCoy looked out
On the feast of Stephen
Where the food lay 'round about,
Deep and crisp and even."

There's more...

[Rusty Edge]

If it rhymes and puts you in a good mood, please share.

[Unorthodox]

She's an ex 2nd chair cello, and she can't stand any off-key singing.

Bet she's like me and finds 90% of the carols put out by every freakin artist on the planet intolerable.  There's a point where trying to do your own arrangement just makes it mush.  At some point, you just need to sing it straight up, not try to 'make it your own'. 

[Rusty Edge]

She's an ex 2nd chair cello, and she can't stand any off-key singing.

Bet she's like me and finds 90% of the carols put out by every freakin artist on the planet intolerable.  There's a point where trying to do your own arrangement just makes it mush.  At some point, you just need to sing it straight up, not try to 'make it your own'.

Mrs.- "Yep! Exactly." You can imagine her reaction to the National Anthem most of the time. Or mine to Christina Agulera's Super Bowl debacle. If you don't know the song, they make sheet music and teleprompters for that.

[Valka]

As requested, here is the full version of "Doctor Bones McCoy" (tune: Good King Wenceslaus). I ask that you don't copy/paste this anywhere else, because I wrote it 20+ years ago and would prefer that it not be shared without permission.


Doctor Bones McCoy

Doctor Bones McCoy looked out
On the feast of Stephen
Where the food lay 'round about,
Deep and crisp and even.
Blushing, the lieutenant said,
"Sir, I'm off my diet.
Here's a pack of onion rings--
Have one, won't you try it?

"Bring me pie and bring me cake,
Bring me hard rock candy!
Bring me a creamy choc'late shake -
Anything that's handy!
Popcorn, pretzels, I do crave
Lots and lots of munchies.
And my sanity you'll save--
With a bag of Space Crunchies!"

"Lieutenant, you are out of line -
Go and eat your dinner!
Plomeek soup should do you fine,
You will be much thinner!"
"Doctor, won't you take with me
A walk to the transporter?
Where this ship, it soon will be--
One C.M.O. shorter!"

~~~~~

(Imagine one of Scotty's Engineering lieutenants defying McCoy's orders to eat healthy meals, desperate after a long stretch of dieting... and neither McCoy nor the crewperson are impressed with the other's point of view!)

[Rusty Edge]

That's pretty good! It made me happy. Thanks, Valka.

[Valka]

Thank you. 

I've done other Christmas filks, but some of them only got as far as the first verse. I like to tell a story when I'm writing these, and some stories come more easily than others.