Advent 9

[mylodon]

It's the little drummer boy behind the door today. Here's why...

Many years back I was waiting at the doctor's and picked up a Christmas edition of a 'Christian' magazine. Reading the letters page, I found somebody complaining about 'Little Drummer Boy', and similar seasonal songs, and saying they shouldn't be sung because they didn't reflect the nativity story as recorded in the gospels. No drummer boys there. That letter made me cross on many counts, one of which I'll share today.

That blinkered obsession with the biblical text is neither helpful or sensible. While I'm not for a minute saying that a drummer boy was present in the stable, plenty of other things had to be there that don't get a mention. Jesus' umbilical cord and the cutting of it, for example. As an author, I know that we have to present a shorthand of people's lives, not mentioning every meal they took or every time they went to the loo. In the same way the gospel writers would have focussed on certain elements of Jesus' life and left others out - but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

There is not a single mention of cats anywhere in the bible. Do we for a moment think that none of the families featured had a friendly feline slinking its way through the house? Should we therefore not mention cats in anything to do with biblical times/characters/events?

Daft isn't it?

Comments

[nodbear.livejournal.com]

Like you this season is special to me - my inner kid is very near the surface the whole time


The little drummer boy is an essential part of Christmas first in terms of spirit of the season.
Bravo to your annoyance - I would have taken the mag to the nearest bin very ceremoniously - remind me to tell you the story of the mysterious vandal who stole the Additional Curates Society posters one day soon :)

Aled and the late great Terry ( lovely Celtic combo even if, as you my very good friendmylodon would say,they support/ed the wrong sides at Rugby) raised money for children in need with their version of the song -charitable aims which many groups have had in covering the song And the origins themselves are an intriging story which Wikipedia sets on the trail of ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4CcIK4RZ3s

The music and the words of the best known version are those of American composer, lecturer and pioneer for women in classical music education, Katherine Davis, who lived in Concord.
I Am convinced there is an older tradition for the story but the haunting little melody and drum effect are all the legacy of Katherine.To me the drummer boy sounds by this music very American in a historical sense, as if he were of the 17th /18th century - a little lad in a scarlet coat like many who were killed on the battle fields of those those centuries - hear the army marching in the blocked chords under the melody.
He is of any time and all time - and he is any child at the metaphoical manger
And he brings together so many people and nations open todays door 10 for just a few...
thanks for starting me on this trail - evven though I am supposed to be wrting a naval history paper for next week in Oxford !

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

My pleasure to distract you.

Thanks for the info on Little Drummer Boy - how fascinating. I had no idea of the origin. I've always heard that marching beat in the music, like the sort of tune units slow march to. Am going to pick up some more thoughts on this song tomorrow.

I wish I'd been brave enough to bin that magazine. Looking forward to the vandal story...

[vespican.livejournal.com]

Didn't realize the song had come about so recently... always thought it was something my parents and grandparents... and farther back would have been familiar with. Ms. Davis lived and died in pretty close parallel with my Grandmother.
Dave

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

I've learned a lot with this post!

[nodbear.livejournal.com]

Some more thoughts on the song itself I'll leave to you but shortly posting a few thouhts on the gift that at heart it has been.
and ps

re cats in the bible - perhaps St JErome and Luther were in an unlikely time bending and unlikely conspiracy being a pair of dog people or maybe though they were scholars of Hebrew and Greek their lolcat was a bit rudimentary :)
hence their apparent mistranslation :)

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

You're going to have to explain that second paragraph...

[esteven]

There were certainly so many people visiting at the time, why should not the little drummer boy have been there. And the cat, and a dog, and dozens of birds, and other little children. I am certain they were.

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

*nods* And remembering the three births I've gone through, the Dagenham girl Pipers could have turned up and I wouldn't have been bothered.

[bauhiniakapok.livejournal.com]

So true!

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

And one of the things I find convincing in the gospels is John the Baptist's mother hiding herself away until she's six months pregnant. Like her, we had problems conceiving (and then lost the first child in utero) so when I was pregnant again I wanted to hide away until at least the point the baby was kicking.

[esteven]

So they didn't?
*is plain curious*
;)

[charliecochrane.livejournal.com]

They might have done for all I know!

[esteven]

*g*

[esteven]

*g*

[stevie-carroll.livejournal.com]

Ah, the late, great Sir Terry and the lovely Aled. :-)

I suspect that magazine would have disapproved of vicars selling beer by the pint in church too. Not to mention the regonal versions of carols and the woman who stood up at the front and sang an anti-war song (possibly by Joni Mitchell?) in honour of Syria.

[mylodon.livejournal.com]

LOL It probably wouldn't have approved of the 'bar as altar' (Hello? Last supper?) or of the vicar who got his dog sponsored for how many times it cocked its leg on a walk for Save the Children. When people said it was disgusting, he said it was disgusting that children starved.

I don't half miss Terry Wogan.