what's your favorite christmas carol?

Bleak Midwinter, 100%. Also fond of "Lo, How A Rose Ere Blooming" and the cradle song and other oddities like them, but those would only be in a poll of "boring old English music that nobody knows".

o holy night

o come o come emmanuel

The Holly and the Ivy

God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen

Or that O Christmas Tree one if you slip in The Red Flag lyrics.

alan parsons in a winter wonderland wenceslas

o come all ye faithful :

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pMCLxgbASB0

last week i heard a choir singing good king wenceslas and i almost cried. any song with the line "bring me flesh and bring me wine", the word "thither", and which ends with "they who now will bless the poor shall themselves find blessing" is onto something.

o come o come emmanuel

-- and what, Thursday, December 13, 2007 3:51 PM (57 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

God Rest ye Merry Gentlemen

man FUM FUM FUM is so weird

O Holy Night. The lyrics are sublime.

"Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease."

Didn't we do this last year? TH and I had same thoughts on Wenceslas.

Also, no Tom Lehrer, no cred

Wensclaslas does indeed have the best message, but you just can't beat Adeste Fidelis in the last verse for that pull all the stops out and let the organ shake the church to its foundations sound in the the last verse (also it comes at the end of the service and you know it's booze and mince pies from then on)

good king wenceslas was the second thing i learned on the piano. the first, fernando.

o holy night sends a chill down my back on the high note. usually the person singing it is the "star" of the choir too, almost always a young woman, so there's always this context of exceptional talent and a future yet unspoilt

silent night probably kills me more than any other though, especially if sung with no accompaniment by a whole lot of people. when it gets to "radiant beams from thy holy face" i just lose it. hahaha i am such a holiday sap.

Christmas music is so awesome.

(also where is "I Wonder As I Wander"?)

i don't know that one?!

Oh, it's a good one. Very haunting.

"I Wonder As I Wander" gets routinely moidered by ersatz soloists. I pretty much cringe when I see it on the church bulletin.

Here's a version of "I Wonder as I Wander" by Peter, Paul, and Mary (accompanied by the New York Choral Society).

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=11533BE336F5E1E5

I don't remember hearing "the coventry carol (lully lullay)" aside from the film Black Narcissus.

Singing with the Boston Pops has put so many bad John Williams Christmas songs into my databank. Anyone want to join me in a rousing rendition of "Merry Christmas!" from "Home Alone"?

no?

some christmas carols should never be thought of again, much less sung ("ding dong merrily on high" i'm looking at you)

My mother says she sang the Coventry Carol to me lots while she was pregnant, and when I cried at my delivery she sang it from across the room and I quieted and all the nurses cried. We have good family stories. :D

Ding Dong has good choral parts, though!

And the word "riven"! I like it.

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for the glorious season.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for a happy new year.

Sing merrily, merrily, loud and strong,
Welcome the wintry season.
Just follow along with the holiday song.
Santa is here again, yes!

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for the glorious season.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for a happy new year.

The reindeer fly, if you need any proof.
'Smerely a matter of reason.
Just listen, you'll hear when they land on the roof.
Santa is here again, yes!

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for the glorious season.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for a happy new year.

Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Sing a song for the glorious season.
Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas!
Its a magical, miracle, annual, lyrical,
sing-along now, sing a song for a happy new year!

Sorry.

"In Dulci Jubilo" is another one missing from the list (aka "Good Christian Men, Rejoice").

you know what i really hate are handbell choirs. voice is enough, thanks.

xp: do you have to sing that doing the Culkin hands-to-face?

ugh "ding dong" it's just so stiff and proper, yet pretends to be fun and slapdash with its self-conscious onomatopoeia - it's the poseur of all christmas carols

ah i like "good christian men rejoice" a lot, it's a weird lurchy one

oh i forgot "silver bells"!!! not technically a carol but so shamefully fun to sing

Oh, I like handbell choirs, too. We didn't have them where I grew up so they are rare and special and mysterious. And gloved!

why will no one purify the sons of levi?

Christmas carols are one of the things that might temp this grizzled atheist back through the doors of a church.

There's a lot of good secular christmas music as well connected with the wassailing traditions. The Jacobstowe Wasail is one of my favourites:

Wassail, wassail,
Good master and mistress, sitting down by the fire,
While we poor wassailers be dabbling in the mire,
With a jolly wassail.
Oh, little Robin Redbreast he has a fine wing,
Give us of your cider and we'll begin to sing,
With a jolly wassail.

Wassail, wassail,
Good master and mistress, our wassail begin,
Please open your door and let us come in,
With a jolly wassail.
Oh, little Robin Redbreast he has a fine song,
Give us of your cider, we won't keep you long,
With a jolly wassail.

Wassail, wassail,
Your ale cup is white and your ale it is brown,
Your beer is the best that e'er can be found,
With a jolly wassail.
Oh, little Robin Redbreast he has a fine leg,
Give us of your cider, and we'll begin to beg,
With a jolly wassail.

Wassail, wassail,
Your gin it is brew'd from the juniper tree,
Your gin is the best that ever can be,
With a jolly wassail.
Oh, little Robin Redbreast he has a fine toe,
Give us of your cider, and we'll begin to go,
With a jolly wassail.

Wassail, wassail,
With a jolly wassail.

I rather like this fairly brutal puritanical religious carol as well, it's appeared on a lot of folk albums recently:

On Christmas Day It Happened So

On Christmas Day it happened so
Down in the meadow for to plough,
As he was ploughing all on so fast
Up stepped sweet Jesus himself at last.

“Oh man, oh man, why do you plough
So hard upon Our Lord's birthday?”
The farmer answered him with great speed,
“For to plough this day I have got need.”

His arms did quaver through and through,
His arms did quaver, he could not plough.
The ground did open and lose him in
Before he could repent of sin.

His wife and children's out of place,
His beasts and cattle almost lost.
His beasts and cattle they die away
For ploughing on Old Christmas day.
His beasts and cattle they die away
For ploughing on Our Lord's birthday.

silent night is my fave

handbell choirs usually comprise a real smorgasbord of congregational booty

Tracer, you crazy, "Ding Dong" is awesome fun to sing, the accompaniment part to the chorus moves in all the places that the melody DOESN'T, so you get to feel like yr actually accomplishing something.

i think it's the way you have to say "merrily" that gets on my nerves

"Santa is here again, yes!"

i like to this that when the song gets to this line all instrumentation stops and one guy shouts this in a Borat accent

"like to THINK that"

i cant choose!!! i like all the ones in minor keys; christmas is great for having sort of sad-sounding songs

we three kings is good (played it as a coltrane-ish thing when i was doing the church gig!), but god rest ye merry gentleman ftw

I just looked it up again to refresh and I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many people like "God Rest Ye". Perplexed face.

Archetypal Victorian jolity so it gets into every version of a christmas carol ever, is all I can guess.

I voted for "God Rest Ye," it has a good beat and lyrics about Satan.

Hey, does anybody know any good albums that would have a lot of these songs, but not performed in a traditional way (i.e. with a church choir or whatever). I guess I'm looking for something that would be a little more "pop" (or jazz or blues or country) but that would still maintain a certain air of holiness...

did you not see the twisted sister youtube above?

what's the one that goes "Falalala lala lalala"

the david bowie/bing crosby drummer boy is not bad.

laurel otm! i love lo how a rose and holly and ivy and all those oldie/goodie ones.

also: no carol of the bells, no credibility. coolest harmonies and such.

"o come o come emmanuel" ftw, not sure i've heard "o holy night", might be an american thing

"o come all ye faithful" a close second

http://www.tinderarts.com/xmas/OHolyNight.mp3

will make you rethink choosing o holy night as best

its really hard to find a good version of o holy night!!

the melody is difficult so a lot of assholes use that as an excuse to show off, which ruins the song's mood

YES

see: mariah carey

yahbut nat king cole homie, lets not make this more complicated than it is.

people who hate the drummer boy can eat my hot, writhing feces.

its absence ensures a complete and utter lack of any credibility whatsoever in this election.

perhaps a renaming of the thread title is in order? like maybe "most shit holiday tune ever?"

-- Alex In NYC, Saturday, 15 December 2007 09:40 (10 hours ago) Link

will look for joe williams, tremendoid. thnx

I am pretty sure feces is not supposed to writhe. You may want to cut back on the Christmas eels, Tom.

Why didn't Elvis cover all of these.

O Holy Night, for the "fall on your knees" part

That song is just one gorgeous melody after another, really

i just spent like 20 minutes looking for a good version of on youtube and i couldnt find a single one

Renee Fleming: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcFjMpumgtI (I sang in the chorus for a BSO performance of "The Creation" with her as the soprano)
Jussi Björling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo75jFLjKaw (Swedish tenor)
NSync http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXzJqRXLI08 (Chris Kirkpatrick basically embarrasses every guy out there today who sings falsetto on this)
Johnny Mathis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0inp9eRMovM (YOU CANNOT FUCK WITH THIS)
Donna Summer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5zNEmU_L7k (She's just awesome even if she's dressed like a lunatic)
Nat King Cole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwUUK2Z85XE (YOU ALSO CANNOT FUCK WITH THIS)

(These were all in the first two pages of search results, btw.)

Johnny seems to waiver a little on the High Note... but it's great. Surprised they kept it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8b0y9GsJ80 <------ this should be a Christmas song

i actually really hate the renee fleming & jussi bjorling versions... i know youre a singer dan and not that i have a good enough ear to tell but i have no doubt that both fleming and bjorling have top-tier voices. but, i dunno, i like my "o holy night" a little more homely, a little less... operatic. if that makes sense. its a personal preference, obviously. i think the donna summer one is probably the closest to how i like it, and the mathis and nkc versions are great! i dont like the arrangment of the 'n sync one.

As far as close-harmony arrangements go, that 'NSync arrangement is pretty good; really the only thing that spoils it are a couple of missed notes from Justin and Chris (Joey, JC and Lance are all pretty much dead-on the entire time).

My favorite version of "O Holy Night" is from the Sufjan Christmas compilation. It's very pretty and not as schmaltzy as many other arrangements I've heard.

I put it up on YSI:

http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=72C63C2C5FAE0CCA

that's awesome you got to sing w/ her dan!

Yeah, that was my first concert with the BSO! God, NINE years ago!

(My last one was thrashed in this review.)

the n'sync one is good on its own but doesn't really exploit what's great about the song. i could get used to it.

neil diamond did a really good "o holy night."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

I just sang a Chanticleer arrangement of "In the Bleak Midwinter" that was totally 8080

also I am too lazy to check the thread but did anyone mention Personet Hodie?

'little town of bethlehem' is missing, but i'd probly pick 'o holy night' anyway. i like the aaron neville recording, it's a song where i think his overripeness works.

i also like the old english carols these guys dig up.

Having heard Aaron Neville do "O Holy Night" live (yet another Holiday Pops concert), I can never ever ever ever endorse his version of the song. Oof.

i can't think of anything neville without recalling the snl spoofs of him so he's out in my book.

i think i am going with coventry carol because i love how the harmonies resolve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picardy_third

Curt1s otm

tehresa that's actually the only thing i DON'T like about the coventry carol!! it's so deep and mysterious and intense - and then, right at the very end, it goes all major-chord out of nowhere - i'm like WTF!

Tracer, u mad

wait I misused that meme again

that's why i think it is awesome, tracer! out of now where like - omg i'm stuck in church humoring my parents and these people are being all serious BAM! gotcha!

Tracer, you need to read that Wikipedia link.

if anything I think the major chord makes it sound more mysterious

ugh god i miss studying music. theatre is bullshit.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

"god rest ye merry" by a nose!

i've always loved how that song makes tidings of comfort and joy sound so ominous

What's "o holy night" ?

fum fum fum

The Beach Boys w/out their teeth?

kenny burrell's 'little drummer boy' is excellent. don't really remember a vocal version I especially liked though.