Okay, so as one of the froggier Canadians, I first learned Christmas carols in French. And I always used to wonder, “What the heck does the Little Drummer Boy have to do with Christmas?”
The French lyrics have nothing to do with a little kid playing the bongos for Baby Jesus. It’s about a little boy whose father has gone off, called to battle by the soldiers’ drums of war.
Rather than post the lyrics in French, here’s the story in a nutshell:
*Look, a little drummer boy is walking poignantly down the road
“Hey, kid. Where are ya goin’?”
“Yesterday my dad went off to war. He’s gonna meet his maker! :eek: So I wanna exchange my drum for my dad.”
So the angels took the big drum and told the kid,
“Okay, your dad’s come home.”
Then the kid woke up on his drum.*
So what exactly is the history of the French version of the Little Drummer Boy? Does this version pre-date the English Christmas version? Are there more verses?
As a child, in my mind’s eye (and therefore probably erroneously) it was all about a kid trying in vain to follow the soldiers, beating on his toy drum as if he was a grown up, just like his dad. He’d gladly give up his musical career if he could have his father back. He dreamt it came true, but bummer, he woke up! It was all just a dream and Bobby Ewing was in the shower the whole time. I thought it was all pretty depressing for the Yuletide season.
Anyone got any insight? Google just gives me links and links and links to lyrics pages, Celine Dion and Roch Voisine. Not exactly helpful.
Sounds exactly like the '70s practice of making French-Canadian translations of American pop songs that have some of the same recognizable words, but lyrics that mean something completetly different than the original…
Trupa, who had a French nanny who listened to am radio in the 70s…
Actually these French lyrics are the same as the ones that were in Europe soon after the original Drummer Boy song came out in… 1958?
Nana Mouskouri recorded it in French with the dreary lyrics in the early-to-mid 1960s.
So I’m guessing that the French lyrics came out of Europe, not French-Canada.
(Oh, and American pop songs are still translated and re-recorded all over the place. Heard some real howlingly funny stuff in Panama, including a mariachi version of … wait for it… The X-files theme!)
Sure some stuff tries to get the same spirit or theme, or at least stay in the same ballpark. But this is like it was inspired by a completely different tale altogether. Hence I’m wondering… Was the tale from some old, pre-1958 story? Was Mouskouri’s version the first lyrics that were adapted to French? (And why wouldn’t someone else take a stab at something more faithful to the original?)
The French lyrics were written by Georges Coulonges. He was a novelist who wrote many hit songs in the 50s. “L’enfant au tambour” was written in 1965 and wasn’t originally meant to be a Christmas carol. However, people couldn’t dissociate it from the original and it entered the Christmas cannon, despite its lyrics.
The Little Drummer Boy" (originally known as “Carol of the Drum”) is a popular Christmas song written by the American classical music composer and teacher Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941.[1] It was recorded in 1951 by the Trapp Family Singers and realised on the choir’s first lp " Christmas with the Trapp Family Singers " and released as a single (45rpm). These were the first recordings released on their new record label Decca Records and further popularized by a 1958 recording by the Harry Simeone Chorale. This version was re-released successfully for several years and the song has been recorded many times since.
In the 1960s, French novelist Georges Coulonges adapted the song in French and it was firstly recorded by Nana Mouskouri in 1965. The storyline of the song is completely different in French to the original as it has no reference to the Nativity. The French version tells the story of a boy in search of his father who had died in the war. He offers his drum in exchange of having his father brought back to life. The angels of heaven granted him his desire, but then he woke up to find out it was just a dream. The French version denies the Christian origins of the song and has a sad touch to it that does not appear in the original. L’Enfant au Tambour performed by Nana Mouskouri in the 1960s:
