Ozark Oddments: Rump-a-pum pum…phooey

Monday, December 23, 2013

Rump-a-pum pum…phooey

Let me stay right off that I do like Christmas music. I like the old-fashioned carols. I think it is wonderful that young musicians are writing new Christmas music. And I understand that each generation of singers likes to modernize and upgrade the old classic songs. I get it.

I normally listen to a Christian music station that plays contemporary “rock” style songs, but lately? The station began playing Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving. At first this was just occasionally, but now that Christmas is upon is, it has reached a crescendo. I do not want to hear one more upbeat “rock” style version of “Oh Come All Ye Faithful,” and so I am pushing the button quite a bit more often.

The Carol of the Drums (Little Drummer Boy) is beginning to become especially irritating. One wonders how many singers and groups of singers have done that song since the first early recordings of it. Some of the new groups that are doing this songs are amazing. And some are not and one would like them to just stop.

But, I do recall one particularly beautiful version of the song that I heard a long time ago – in fact I remember watching this on television back in 1977. Two men with beautiful voices and with very different careers—David Bowie and Bing Crobsy— singing a duet. David Bowie and Bing Crosy? You betcha.

The video on YouTube does not play in sync very well on my computer and if it does not on yours either, then just listen…

And Merry Christmas!

2 comments:

Donna. W said...: I love the original version of "Little Drummer Boy". But this one is nice enough that I shared it on Facebook. Thanks.; 9:08 PM
Far Side of Fifty said...: I am not a fan of any of the "new" Christmas music. It drives me nuts especially played in the early fall. Merry Christmas from Minnesota! :); 8:43 AM

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Thoughts to ponder

Most of us go through life so absorbed in the cocoon of ourselves that we rarely stop to consider the other. Of course, we think that we do; indeed, we may pride ourselves on our capacity for empathy; we may be considerate and thoughtful in our dealings with others, but how often do we stand before them. so to speak, and experience what it is to be them?--Domenica Macdonald

The Unbearable Lightness of Scones, by Alexander McCall
Smith

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Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering -- because you can't take it in all at once. --Audrey Hepburn

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I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all, I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.--Agatha Christie

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Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.--Katharine Hepburn

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One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship

"Two people... told me that the word "Christian" would turn people off. I wouldn't mind if to be a Christian were accepted as being the dangerous thing which it is. I wouldn't mind if, when a group of Christians meet for bread and wine, we might well be interrupted and jailed for subversive activities. I wouldn't mind if, once again, we were being thrown to the lions. I do mind, desperately, that the word "Christian" means for so many people smugness, and piosity, and holier-than-thoughness. Who, today, can recognize a Christian because of "how those Christians love one another"?--Madeline L'Engle, "A Circle of Quiet"