# Xmas carol--"Little Drummer Boy"--Love it or hate it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 3, 2002, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199 "2002-12-03T12:56:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/21 "2002-12-03T19:32:00Z")
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] ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/22 "2002-12-03T19:37:48Z")
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! 😃 CJ If you do, I swear I’ll sing it for you! ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/23 "2002-12-03T19:49:38Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Leifsmama](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a698b9/32.png) [@Leifsmama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leifsmama)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/24 "2002-12-03T20:58:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/25 "2002-12-03T20:59:57Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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 ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/26 "2002-12-03T21:04:41Z")
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). ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/27 "2002-12-03T21:49:18Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![dangermom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@dangermom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dangermom)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/28 "2002-12-03T22:32:06Z")
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…_ ---
**Author:** ![FallenAngel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@FallenAngel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FallenAngel)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/29 "2002-12-03T22:39:49Z")
**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. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/30 "2002-12-03T22:56:35Z")
Hates it. Yes, we hates it… ---
**Author:** ![Wicked\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/2acd7d/32.png) [@Wicked\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wicked_Blue)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2002, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/31 "2002-12-03T23:53:19Z")
Little Drummer Boy is not only my most hated Christmas song, but it is my most hated song of ALL TIME. That is all. ---
**Author:** ![Arden\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@Arden\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arden_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/32 "2002-12-04T00:08:24Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/33 "2002-12-04T00:17:41Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/34 "2002-12-04T00:20:25Z")
i forgot: fenris, you had me laughing out loud! ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/35 "2002-12-04T00:53:05Z")
All time favourite. Well, that and Snoopy’s Christmas. Just have simple tastes I guess. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/36 "2002-12-04T02:04:27Z")
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.htm](http://www.jerryosborne.com/12-10-01.htm) > [@](#): > > What’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](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.” ---
**Author:** ![dreamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6bbea6/32.png) [@dreamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dreamer)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/37 "2002-12-04T02:19:37Z")
Ahh! Definately one of my _very_ favorite Christmas songs!! ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/38 "2002-12-04T02:26:07Z")
**Love it** Naff is my middle name. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/39 "2002-12-04T04:07:47Z")
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](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/](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. ---
**Author:** ![I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@I\_can\_t\_believe\_that\_s\_butter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_can_t_believe_that_s_butter)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2002, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199/40 "2002-12-04T05:42:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*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… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/xmas-carol-little-drummer-boy-love-it-or-hate-it/140199.md?page=3)