Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Christmas Time is Beut...

[highlyeccentric]

What the hell, I'm procrastinating!

That's actually the only 'Australian' carol I'm halfway fond of. Although I have fond memories of this one, which was my minister's favourite when I was in high school. The actual song's pretty twee, though.

This one I have loved since I first got my hands on the Medieval Baebes - but especially since I discovered that it is a great tradition amongst Australian uni choristers to sing the Gaudete with ridiculous things to the verses. Tt's close enough to the common metre that you can squish things in. The Australian national anthem. The Ring Poem. A random string of numbers which someone once arranged in just the right order, and which many choristers have now memorised. And the ever popular "Mary had a little lamb / she also had a duck. / She put them on the mantelpiece and taught them how to GAUDETE, GAUDETE CHRISTUS EST NAUTUS..."

And this is a new one - I first heard it last weekend, at the SUMS Carolfest. I find the idea of people running all the way from England to Bethlehem with torches somewhat amusing.

Speaking of amusing, they also performed The Angel Gabriel. I have it on good authority that there are members of SUMS who have never sung 'most highly favoured lady', preferring 'most highly flavoured gravy', or, in some cases, 'most highly flavoured lady'.

Most hated carol? If I never hear "So this is Christmas/ War is over" again it will BE TOO SOON.

Comments

for the edification of all

[kayloulee]

I can has a cheezburger,
Ceiling Cat he say,
I am in your PCP,
Stealing Gaudete!

[PCP=post concert party]

Also:

A-B-C-D-E-F-G
H-I-J-K-LMNOP
Q-R-S, T-U-V,
W, X, Y AND ZED!

[jjhunter]

I've never encountered 'GAUDETE' before - how beautiful, and what fun the variations are! Thank you for sharing. :o)

[tree_and_leaf]

The worst of it is, I now find it hard not to sing 'Most highly flavoured gravy'...

[monksandbones]

Ooh, this is relevant to my interests! I usually hate "Jingle Bells" with a moderate passion (my most intense and burning hatred is reserved for all the songs that appear in this XKCD comic), but your version actually made me... bizarrely homesick with its sense of place! Now I want chilly, grubby, and hopefully soon snowy little Vernon and its hideous holiday decorations!

I love that Gaudete is subject to hilarious variations! I've sung it in a couple of choirs, but sadly none with that tradition. I'm a bit on the fence about the Mediaeval Baebes, though. I like their arrangements, but I hate the breathy way they sing. It might partly be post-production effects, but it makes my vocal cords hurt just listening to it. Engage your diaphragms and BOTH sets of your vocal cords, Mediaeval Baebes!

Torches is also new to me! When I clicked on it, I was expecting it to be "Un flambeau, Jeanette Isabelle," and then it wasn't.

Then I started trying to come up with Canadian carols, and there aren't many, since Canada obviously fits the "European snowy winter trad carols" mold better than say, Europe, and probably like Australia, has absorbed the British carol tradition. But we have "The Huron Carol/Jesous Ahatonia" (here partly in actual Huron) and a few French carols that I don't think are as well-known elsewhere in the English-speaking world. But in any case, traditional carols are fascinating (unlike the TRAVESTIES of the twentieth century). So yes.