Actually, I don’t remember ever skipping this verse, and I’ve attended an awful lot of churches over the years. Same for you, gigi – and that verse is often sung as a bass solo (which king it’s supposed to be escapes my memory; Balthazar, perhaps?) FriarTed, BTW, is completely right. Christmas is not a holiday for its own sake; it is merely the start of a history whose purpose is death – or life, but you get the point. Christ’s birth is only important in light of his death and resurrection.
ETA: it seems par for course for national anthems to have additional, largely unsung verses. O Canada! is a good example.
I always heard it as “they are running evenly” but I never listened very closely.
I’ve heard there are something like 15 verses to Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” I’ve only heard the Shrek version (5 verses) and two more verses:
You say I took the name in vain
I don’t even know the name
But if I did, well really, what’s it to you?
There’s a blaze of light in every word
It doesn’t matter which you’ve heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
and
I did my best, it wasn’t much
I couldn’t feel, so I tried to touch
I told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I’ll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but “Hallelujah”
I’ve always been very curious as to the other alleged eight.
The only time he makes TV is when he’s doing the “perp walk” with his hands handcuffed. People typically put their hands up to obscure their face during such an event.
I was under the impression this verse had come about because on ‘The Dukes of Hazard’ (the song was the theme music for it), during the opening credits, all that was shown of the singer was his hands strumming the guitar.
I guess I was thinking more of commercial recordings and the children’s masses of my youth. And I haven’t been to a Christmas mass in English in years. Of course, you’re right, the death is what makes the birth significant.
A duck? How is that even a threat? According to Wikipedia, it’s “goon” not “goo”, but I still prefer the way I heard it (or believed I heard it). It’s all the more ominous for being nonsensical. Wikipedia also mentions the final, moral-subverting verse.
Actually, in my childhood, it was a goon, complete with waving fingers and “blech!” noises. The duck is what my daughter’s teacher said, and, I am informed on a daily basis, the teacher knows and I don’t.
My observation is that everyone remembers all the verses, with Bunny FooFoo bouncing along and bopping and all, and counts down from three to one, and then can’t remember what happens at the end. I suspect the whole “duck” variation is intended to have an ending that someone can remember.
I don’t get those lyrics. They don’t words don’t seem to fit into the theme music. A friend and I came up with these lyrics - Better than Gene’s afaic because you can sing it along with the opening theme.
Star Trek, its a trip into space
On Star Trek, many dangers they’ll face
And so, the five year journey goes on,
this is our
Star fuxxxxg Trek!
“The Yellow Rose of Texas” is a song that’s undergone a lot of editing and changing over the years. There’s basically two sets of verses.
One is about the soldier’s loss of the “rose”, and sings She’s the sweetest rose of color, this soldier ever knew. This version is older, and quite obviously refers to the girl as being of mixed race, or black. It ends with a verse about Confederate generals, and is the version sung in Ken Burn’s “Music of the Civil War” Link #1
One refers to the “rose” as* She’s the sweetest little rosebud this soldier ever knew*, and goes on to talk about the old days and how the singer hopes they’ll get together again. Link #2
The third link gives what seems to be a very good history of the poem that became to a song, and quotes some yet more changed lyrics. It seems it wasn’t originally a “soldier” singing, but a “darky”
The last verse hardly anybody knows of “Amazing Grace” because the Conspiracy replaced it with “When we’ve been there ten thousand years…”
The Earth will soon dissolve like snow
The Sun forbear to shine
But God who called me here below
Will be forever mine.