I have a confession to make - I actually like Christmas carols. Some of what some of them say is not the greatest theology nor yet the finest of poetry, but they do seem to have the ability to move people to some kind of repsonse, at least for a few moments. Among the few, in regular use, I cannot abide, is 'Away in a Manger' yet when I see a group of 90+ year olds sing it, it does manage to bring a lump even my cynical throat.
For some reason today I found myself recalling some of those dire things written in the 1970s (?) we sang in the school choir that thankfully have fallen from use. Does anyone else recall the 'Cowboy Carol' with its relentless 'bing-a-bing-bang-bong' at the end of each line, and that deeply meaningful chorus 'yoi yippee, we're gonna ride the trail, yoi yippee, we're gonna ride today, when I climb up to my saddle, gonna take him to my he-a-r-t... there'll be a new world beginning from tonight!'
Maybe you loved this carol and it worked for you. Maybe there are others, in use or not, that drove/drive you nutty. Anyone want to share their best or worst?
Comments
Yup pardner, that there context sure does have a lot to answer fer!
Just like Woody in Toy Story I'll bet the Cowboy Carol stopped making sense the week Sputnik went up and Rawhide was cancelled. But somewhere there's sure to be a little boy who still loves to sing Yoi yippee! And darn it, you guessed it. That there little boy is me!
If you think you can hear badly disguised snivelling, it's probably me blubbing quietly in the corner because suddenly I'm 8 years old and back in the second row of the 1968 Christmas concert in the prefabricated hall of Atherstone North Junior School, dressed in my red tie, grey short trousers and grey (hand-knitted) woolly jumper, singing my heart out and trying to enunciate all my consonants like Mrs Butler told us to!
For many I guess 'Away in a Manger' touches the nerve of the first thing they learned by heart. Even people with various sorts of cognitive impairment can often remember it word perfect.
Sentimental? Yes. Authentic? Absolutely. What memory jerkers will suddenly grip people in another 70 years as they remember the wonder they first felt in 2007?
These days I give space to 'In a byre near Bethlehem' and 'Shepherds watch and wise men wonder'. BPW 199 and 175 respectively (but you won't hear them on many street corners).
Hi ho, Silver, away!
Maybe if I'd learned it at 8 rather than 13...
I just hope that in thirty years time my little girlies aren't still singing 'how many miles, hee-haw, do I have to walk, hee-haw' - the song of the fed up donkey in the GB nativity play.
No, that wouldn't work at 13 either.
Another quick plug: this time for Complete Mission Praise no. 98, 'Come now with awe, earth's ancient vigil keeping'. Words by T Dudley-Smith, tune Finlandia. Too early to use it this Sunday so I'm trying to shoehorn it in for Advent 3.