Xmas carol--"Little Drummer Boy"--Love it or hate it?

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

It's always been a favorite of mine. Some children can be amazingly unselfish, & somehow the kid in the carol says that to me.

Your opinions? :)

[Slacker]

It's pretty good. The version by the Dandy Warhols rocks too. :D

[Astroboy14]

I like it, if it is done the traditional slow way... it's kinda catchy!

This makes me wonder, though... where does this song come from? I can't seem to recall any Biblical story right off the top of my head about a little drummer boy...

Anyone? :confused:

[KarlGrenze]

I like this song, although I prefer listening to it in Spanish, of course, ;) and sung by Danny Rivera.

[Hamadryad]

Agh, I HATE IT! Hate it hate it hate it. I don't know why. I've always loathes and despised this carol. This one and "Jolly Old St. Nicholas." As soon as I hear "COOOOOOOOOOOOOOME THEY TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD ME" I can feel my eardrums threaten to rupture.

So. Uhm. There's my vote. :D

[lost4life]

I actually look forward to hearing Christmas carols, but not this one. Something about it just irks me. I know most people who just had a baby in a barn would appreciate a child playing a drum solo to calm their nerves, but not me. I guess I'm just weird.

[Morgainelf]

Love, love, love it. I really like the hokey Bing Crosby/David Bowie version too.

As for origin, it was written in 1958 in the US by K. Davis, H. Onorati, and H. Simone.

[TelcontarStorm]

I'm with Hama on this one.

I've hated the damn sone ever since my 3rd grade teacher forced us to sing it for an Xmas show. But I feel the same way about "Yankee Doodle" for the same reason.

This tune is worn out. I've always liked my Xmas tunes non-traditional. (except of course, Have yourself a merry little Xmas) so, I'd probly dislike any tune about the holiday anyone brings up.

Ba rum pum bum pum youself into a holiday frenzy. Enjoy

[Miss Mapp]

I'm more bored by it, rather than feeling an active dislike. Fifty-bajillion iterations of Brum-pum-pum-pum do not put me in a cheerful holiday mood; they just make me wonder if this song is ever going to end.

[StGermain]

Like Morgainelf, I really like the Bing Crosby/David Bowie version. But pretty much only that version.

StG

[delphica]

I love this song, and I was astonished when I realized that many people rank it up there with the worst holiday songs ever. I like the traditional version, and also the Bing/Bowie one (although that also appeals to my sense of the surreal).

I remember the Christmas special fondly, and when I was a kid I would look forward to it every year, with that special mix of dread and anticipation. It's so sad (with the little sheep), although it comes out all right in the end. I was one of those kids who enjoyed, in a perverse way, that kind of emotional torture.

[Mullinator]

Much like "The Lion Sleeps Tonight", the second I recognize that this song is being played I do whatever possible to escape the vengeful wrath it is trying to thrust upon me.

[Fenris]

Hama and I just had a bonding moment. :)

I love most Christmas Carols, but I hate that one. I abhor that carol. I want to take th' kid, kill him, skin him, and make a drum from his hide just to make him SHUT UP!

IMO the carol stinks. You just know the kid's a doe-eyed Dondi type who's getting by on being pathetic, rather than any innate talent. In addition, he's a rotten drummer (he only knows one pah-rum-pah-pum-pum rhythm), he's banging on a drum in front of a newborn baby (I figure that after 20 (?) hours of labor, Mary'd rather get some rest than hear the incessant "Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum") and how crappy of a drummer must he be if he needed to the ox and lamb to keep time to a f*cking drumbeat??? The drummer keeps time for the band. Or a competent drummer does.

I think the last verse should go something like this:

"Hey! Stop that racket kid"
Pah rum pum pum pum
Mary and Joseph said
Pah rum pum pum pum
"We wanna get some sleep!"
Pah rum pum pum
He woke and looked at me
Pah rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum

"You really suck" He said
Pah rum pum pum pum
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"
"You and your drum"


Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum this, you punk. :: makes an obscene gesture in the Drummer Boy's direction ::

Fenris, who hate that song. Could you tell?

[amarinth]

I love this song.

I used to have the Ezra Jack Keats book of the song, and I loved that too. (great artwork, I recommend it to everyone) And yes, there is something bizarre about having a woman just out labor listen to a drum solo by a little kid - but still, he gave everything he had.

Great carol.

[Tansu]

I hate it. Unlike Fenris, I haven't looked deeply into the reasons why. It just gets on my nerves, agitates my nerves and irritates my nerves.

Give me Christmas With Mario Lanza any day. Well, any day in December.

[Hamadryad]

First off:
Hama and I just had a bonding moment.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eh hem.

Second:
You just know the kid's a doe-eyed Dondi type who's getting by on being pathetic, rather than any innate talent.That's such a big chunk of it. I picture this "little drummer boy" to be one of those little Precious Moments figurines, looking up all pathetic and pitiful and weepy-eyed. I hate Precious Moments figurines. They all look like they're thinking, "No, Daddy - not the belt!!!" *shudder*

Whoa, maybe that's a rant. :D

[Homebrew]

Another hate it here.

[MovieMogul]

Another love it. Can't quite explain why, but the simple harmonies & chord progressions get to me.

[Left Hand of Dorkness]

Love it, hate it -- you bastards have got it stuck in my head now.

Ba rum pa pum aaaaugh!

Daniel

[Labdad]

I like the version that Emmylou Harris (http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&uid=SEARCH&sql=Aqztxlfhegcqo) does.

[panamajack]

I always liked Little Dreidel Boy:

Bing Crosby: Mr. B-b-b-bowie? How about you and me sing a little holiday tune for the Hebrews?

David Bowie: Whatever you want, Bing..

"I have a little dreidel, a-rum-pa-pum-pum.
I made out clay, ba-rum-pum-pum, ba-rum-pum-pum, ba-rum-pum-pum.."
David Bowie: "Why am I singing.. with Bing Crosby?"
David Bowie: "We're not Jewish.."
David Bowie: "This is messed up.."

[/snl]

[Siege]

OK, I'm not thrilled by Dondi, and I hate Precious MomentsTM figurines (excuse me, even typing it left me a bit nauseous), but I love The Little Drummer Boy. I kind of like the pathetic aspects of it, having been a rather pathetic kid. No, you don't need to tell me what kind of adult I am! :D

CJ
If you do, I swear I'll sing it for you!

[FallenAngel]

This has always been one of my favorites. The Bing and Bowie version is great, but for reasons understood only by the gods, the Bob Seger version is my favorite by far.

The only Christmas carol I really can't stand is that damn Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. I just see some uptown swank ragbag saying that to her servants or something. "Oh Dahlings, have yourself a merry little Christmas." I've felt that way about it since I was a kid. It just feels so condescending, even though I know that's not what you're "supposed" to get from it.

[Leifsmama]

Funny thing is that I used to like it until someone pointed out how annoying it was and now it drives me nuts. I'm really just a sheep in person clothes.

[Fenris]

Originally posted by Hamadryad

I hate Precious Moments figurines. They all look like they're thinking, "No, Daddy - not the belt!!!" *shudder*


Uh-oh.

Another bonding moment....


:eek:

;)

Fenris

[twickster]

Man oh man, who knew this would raise such passions?

Absolute most favorite Christmas song ever (sorry FallenAngel): "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." It's so -- poignant. Low expectations. Understated. "From now on our troubles will be out of sight..."

Absolute least favorite Christmas song ever: Yup, "Little Drummer Boy." It's always struck me as a cheesy "Bolero" ripoff. Even the profound surrealism of the Bing-Bowie version can't save it. If you want poignant gifts from ragamuffins, go with "Amahl and the Night Visitors" (which I've decided to get on CD for my Xmas present to myself this year).

[photopat]

Put me in the "likes it" group. I just think it sounds good. I especially like the Bing and Bowie version, because, as was said before, it's just too surreal.

[dangermom]

I always hated it, until last year when I started to perhaps maybe warm up a little bit to it. But it's still too repetitive.

I always associate it with The carol of the bells in my head, which is another too-repetitive song. We used to make up words:

Too many bells
must stop the bells
smash all the bells
kill all the bells...

[FallenAngel]

twickster, no need to apologize. Few things I can think of are as deeply held a matter of personal taste as what xmas carols we like.

The fact that your taste resides exclusively in your mouth is nothing you can help. :D

[Lemur866]

Hates it. Yes, we hates it....

[Wicked Blue]

Little Drummer Boy is not only my most hated Christmas song, but it is my most hated song of ALL TIME.
That is all.

[Arden Ranger]

Aw, I love it. It was the first Christmas carol I learned, taught to me by my grandfather the Christmas before he died. My son and I were signing it together the other day in the car. For the record, he likes it too.

But we hates Deck the Halls.

[handsomeharry]

i really love it. i could listen to it all day long. (as long as the weather is cold). BTW, there seems to be one traditional version...does anyone know who does this one? unless every choir group does it the same way. one strange thing is...i love the song, i love bing crosby and i love dave bowie, but i am one of the few who HATE the bowie/bing version.

plus, i also hate 'have yourself blah blah' for just the reasons that fallenangel listed.

[handsomeharry]

i forgot: fenris, you had me laughing out loud!

[Apollyon]

All time favourite. Well, that and Snoopy's Christmas.

Just have simple tastes I guess. :)

[rowrrbazzle]

I like it, but I really only want to hear it once or twice a season in Simeone's arrangement.Originally posted by Morgainelf
As for origin, it was written in 1958 in the US by K. Davis, H. Onorati, and H. Simone.BZZZZT! http://www.jerryosborne.com/12-10-01.htmWhat's more, Harry Simeone did not even co-write it, as is commonly thought. His writing credit comes about through the magic of publication, not composition.

My father, Jack Halloran, did the original choral arrangement and recorded it for Dot Records in 1957 (one year before Simeone), with the title Carol of the Drum.

This is its original name, as a Czech carol simplistically arranged for church choirs by Katherine K. Davis as found on the 1957 Christmas is a-Comin' album by the Jack Halloran Singers.

One of the producers on the project was Henry Onorati, who took the chart from the original recording session to Harry Simeone, urging him to record it and get it out before the Dot release.from http://www.wellesley.edu/Anniversary/kkdavis.html Davis's most famous composition, "Little Drummer Boy" (originally titled "The Carol of the Drum"), which she wrote in 1941, came to her while she was "...trying to take a nap." The words "...practically wrote themselves," she said. The song became famous when it was recorded by the Trapp Family Singers. Davis later quipped that it "...had been done to death on radio and TV."

[dreamer]

Ahh! Definately one of my very favorite Christmas songs!!

[Eliahna]

Love it

Naff is my middle name.

[rowrrbazzle]

I poked around at the Wellsley site a bit more and found this picture of Davis's original first page: http://www.wellesley.edu/Library/Music/drummer.gif

There's a note on it that says "Czech carol freely transcribed by C.R.W. Robertson". She appears to invented this herself.

More information here: http://www.ericzorn.com/columns/2001/dec/ Davis cringed at the "cutey-cute" new name and later complained that her song had been "done to death" and that "everyone is heartily sick of it." She died in 1980 at age 87, but in a letter she wrote to fellow Wellesley College alumnae in the mid-1970s she said it was not fear of cloying that prompted her to release the song under a pseudonym, but "the feeling that I had perhaps done too many carol texts."

Some would say at least one too many.

Her most famous work is "used as a device of torture by the police to break down hardened criminals and get them to confess," according to humorist Garrison Keillor.

[I can't believe that's butter!]

Originally posted by Fenris
Hama and I just had a bonding moment. :)

I love most Christmas Carols, but I hate that one. I abhor that carol. I want to take th' kid, kill him, skin him, and make a drum from his hide just to make him SHUT UP!

IMO the carol stinks. You just know the kid's a doe-eyed Dondi type who's getting by on being pathetic, rather than any innate talent. In addition, he's a rotten drummer (he only knows one pah-rum-pah-pum-pum rhythm), he's banging on a drum in front of a newborn baby (I figure that after 20 (?) hours of labor, Mary'd rather get some rest than hear the incessant "Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum") and how crappy of a drummer must he be if he needed to the ox and lamb to keep time to a f*cking drumbeat??? The drummer keeps time for the band. Or a competent drummer does.

Pah-rum-pah-pum-pum this, you punk. :: makes an obscene gesture in the Drummer Boy's direction ::

Fenris, who hate that song. Could you tell?



I don't like it as well.

First off, what kind of drum did they mean? I hope it was a timbrel (like a jingle-less tambourine) or something, because IIRC, the snare (or "side") drum, assuming that's what they meant by "drum", was invented some 1,300 years after the day in question. And of course the kid sucked; most technique for the snare drum (leaving out the drumkit entirely, since it was invented only 100 years ago or so) got it's start in Europe around this time and was refined and further developed during the Civil War. Hell, the kid's an innovator in this case: "Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum", if read correctly, is a
Single Dragadiddle (http://www.americandrumschool.com/rudiments.html)! Why isn't this kid in the PAS (http://www.pas.org) Hall of Fame? Who are we to criticize this wunderkind who is the Father of Rudimental Drumming? The song is about as precious as a Precious Moments figurine of a kid on the crapper, but it's a rightful homage to the origin of missed sleep and disturbed peace.

BTW, I hear that bassists think they keep the time. What a load....

[I can't believe that's butter!]

How crappy of a drummer must he be if he needed the ox and lamb to keep time to a f*cking drumbeat???


This kid is more special than I originally thought; he devised the Click Track! (tho' how the ox and lamb actually did "keep time" remains a mystery...)

Just a few steps away was the inspiration for the Chick Tract!

Coincidence.....or was it?





I don't intend to go to hell, anyway....

[RTFirefly]

Shrink, this song makes me wanna kill.

I said kill. I wanna see blood, gore, veins in my teeth, eat dead, burnt bodies, I said kill, kill...:D

And, like Fenris and lost4life, I really like most Christmas carols. I love the great old hymns, from Veni Emmanuel to Adeste Fidelis, as well as plenty of more recent ones. I love "White Christmas." And I even love humorous Christmas songs and parodies: Tom Lehrer's "Christmas Time Is Here, By Golly," Al Yankovic's "Christmas at Ground Zero," and even "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer."

But "The Little Drummer Boy" is right out. I'd rather visit the dentist than hear that "Pah rum pum pum pum." (Helps that I've got a cute dentist, but even if I didn't. :)) I'd rather be flogged in public by Arden Ranger than listen to one more "Pah rum pum pum pum," but that's different, I spose. ;)

I also dislike "Jingle Bell Rock," but not nearly as intensely as "Drummer Boy."

[Barbarian]

The only version of this song that's any good is by Jaymz Bee and the Royal Jelly Orchestra, and that's 'cos the Great Bob Scott is at the helm, giving those drums of his a workout.

None of this slow, solemn, ba-rum-pum-pum pum crap. He's doing one-handed drum rolls on a snare and a tom at the same time. He's got his bass thumping. Cymbals a-clanging. It sounds like he's got 8 arms banging those skins. It's one of the best drum recordings of all time -- up there with Chick Webb playing at the Savoy or Neil Peart doing Rythym Method.

[Siemsi]

I love it.:D

[Arden Ranger]

I'd rather be flogged in public by Arden Ranger than listen to one more "Pah rum pum pum pum," but that's different, I spose.

Pfft. Like you thought that was such a terrible proposition.

[RTFirefly]

Well, that was kinda my point. :D

[sunstone]

Love it!!!...but then I sometimes sing bass in various vocal groups. It and Handel's Messiah have bass parts that are wonderful.

I don't especially like to listen to either one on the radio or TV...I do have a nice version of the Messiah on one of my CDs, though.
Full volume...eyes shut...hard to beat.

[mblackwell]

I have never heard any of the modern version, but I have hated it as long as I can remember.

The Lion Sleeps Tonight,on the other hand, is one of my favorite songs.