When speaking, people say Is’ ray el’ or Is’ ree ul’, but when you sing you should use a different pronunciation.
I think the best way would be to sing Is’ rah yel’, but people are very lazy when it comes to diction and singing.
As a kid, I heard and mentally transcribed the phrase as “the Little Law Jesus” – because he’d grow to adulthood, and initiate a set-up of him commanding people not to do a lot of things that they wanted to, and to do many things which they didn’t want to.
Brings to mind the British author who, around the 1940s / 50s, wrote under the pseudonym “BB”, rather delightful fiction – largely for children, big on countryside-and-natural-world content. One of his tales concerns Wizard Homm of Boland Forest, and a bold and cheeky girl aged ten or so, who – unwisely – habitually mocks him and makes a nuisance of herself to him. Homm sets about trying to turn her into some kind of unsavoury, but less bothersome, life-form, but fails in this ploy: the author quotes his spell for same, as beginning with “To transform a virgin…” – adding very simply, in parenthesis, “a virgin means a young girl”. In times 60 / 70 years ago, when society in general was publically less sex-obsessed than nowadays, I’m sure that the great majority of his young readers would have taken that on board as it stood, and moved on.
Bon Jovi covered this song on the very first release of A Very Special Christmas. Later releases of that album had a different Bon Jovi track, I Wish Every Day Was Christmas.
The version of We Three Kings that I heard in elementary school went something like this:
*We three kings of Orient are
Come to light a rubber cigar.
It was loaded, it exploded,
Knocked us to yonder star.
Oh - oh!
Star of wonder, star of night,
Would you happen to have a light?
Westward leading, still we’re blee-ee-ding
Guide us to the hospital.*
We sang it like this:
*We three kings of Orient are,
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar.
It was loaded and exploded,
That was the end of one king.
We two kings of Orient are,
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar,
It was loaded and exploded,
That was the end of two kings.
I, one king of Orient are,
Tried to smoke a rubber cigar,
It was loaded and exploded,
That was the end of all three kings.*
And I did THIS to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”:
Her teeth are so rotten
They bend like a piece of cotton
Her hair is like mop strings
Her eyes are fried eggs!
We three kings of orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter beeping his hoo-ooter
following yonder star
And don’t get me started on shepherds washing socks by night.
Thank you for posting that. Satisfying read.
Also: I’ve discovered that instead of “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime,” singing “Simply hating this stupid annoying song” also fits the rhythm of the song.
It’s been mentioned in this thread that the lyrics to “Sleigh Ride” are stupid. I agree. Though I don’t mind it in its original instrumental version with no stupid lyrics.
The Christmas Waltz is a song I don’t like, especially the line “This song of mine, in three-quarter time.” It doesn’t rhyme properly. And I don’t like the rest of the song - just seems lackluster.
Or in Britain some fifty years ago; the same wording, except for substituting for the bolded-and-capitalised words: Beatles / Liverpool / Ringo / Starr, respectively.
I think you’ll love Spinal Tap’s version.
My Mom sung it as:
"We three kings of Orient are,
Smoking on a rubber cigar.
It was loaded and exploded,
POOM!
We two kings of Orient are,
Smoking on a rubber cigar.
It was loaded and exploded,
POOM!
I, one king of Orient are,
Smoking on a rubber cigar.
It was loaded and exploded,
POOM!
Silent Night…"
Well mine was from England 30 years ago, so it appears the Beatles have lost popularity faster than silly carol variants
That’s not even the original lyric. The original line is “There’s a birthday party at the home of Farmer Grey.”
Sleigh Ride is just a winter song. Not only is Christmas never mentioned in the lyrics, everyone knows birthdays get ignored at Christmas time. That’s right, it explicitly is NOT a Christmas song.
Except one.
^ And man, is he pissed his birthday falls on Christmas.
That sounded like an outtake.
Cf. Nellie Fox of the White Sox.
That’s never bothered me.
What bothers me about “The First Noel” is how utterly boring the lyrics for verses after the first are:
They looked up and saw a star
Shining in the east beyond them far,
And to the earth it gave great light,
And so it continued both day and night.
It’s what you’d get if you gave a moderately clever junior high school student the assignment of telling the xmas story in rhyme. Star/far Light/night. And it just goes on and on, verse after verse.