History of Christmas Carols (Solomon Playing the Piano at the Bottom of the Page)
Christmas carols are based on Christian lyrics and relate,
in the main, to the Nativity. Christmas carols were introduced in to
church services by St Francis of Assisi in the 12th century. As for the word
carols, "carol" is a derivative of the French word caroler, the interpretation
of which means dancing around in a circle. Carol and carols, eventually came to
mean not only to dance but included music and lyrics - hence modern Xmas Carols.
The joyous themes for many Christmas carols were banned in England by the
staunch Protestant Oliver Cromwell and many of the very old Christmas carols
were subsequently lost for all time. Christmas carols were only fully
popularized again during the Victorian era when they again expressed joyful and
merry themes in their carol lyrics as opposed to the normal, more somber,
Christian lyrics found in hymns. As religious observances in the United States
and England were closely linked the popularity of Christmas carols grew in both
countries in the 19th century. Many Christmas traditions are relatively recent
such as Santa Claus and reindeer and bare no relation to Christmas carols.
The Twelve Days of Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas is a children's rhyme that was originally published in a book called Mirth without Mischief in London around 1780. Originally a memory and forfeit game, to play a circle of players were gathered and each person took it in turns to say the first line of the rhyme. When it is the first players turn again he says the second line of the verse and so on.
100 years later the game and rhyme were adopted by Lady Gomme as a rhyme that "the whole family could have fun singing every twelfth night before Christmas before eating mince pies and twelfth cake".
These are the twelve days beginning on night of Christmas (December 25) and ending on the day of 6 January as Epiphany begins on (January 6). In the Middle Ages this period was one of continuous feasting and merrymaking, which climaxed on Twelfth Night, the traditional end of the Christmas season.
During the twelve days of Christmas, traditional roles were often relaxed, masters waited on their servants, men were allowed to dress as women, and women as men. Often a Lord of Misrule was chosen to lead the Christmas revels. Some of these traditions were adapted from older, pagan customs, including the Roman Saturnalia. Some also have an echo in modern day pantomime where traditionally authority is mocked and the principal male lead is played by a woman, while the leading older female character, or 'Dame' is played by a man.
Some people give gifts, feast and otherwise celebrate on each of the twelve days rather than just on one day at Christmas.
The date of the song's first performance is not known, though it was used in European and Scandinavian traditions as early as the 16th century.
"Twelve Days of Christmas" is a cumulative song, meaning that each verse is built on top of the previous verses. There are twelve verses, each describing a gift given by "my true love" on one of the twelve days of Christmas.
The first verse runs:
The second verse:
...and so forth. The last verse is:
The time signature of this song is not constant, unlike most popular music. The introductory lines, such as "On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me", are made up of two 4/4 bars, while most of the lines naming off gifts receive one 3/4 bar per gift with the exception of "Five golden rings", which receives two 4/4 bars, "Two turtle doves" getting a 4/4 bar with "And a" on its 4th beat and "Partridge in a pear tree" getting two 4/4 bars of music. In most versions, a 4/4 bar of music immediately follows "Partridge in a pear tree." "On the" is found in that bar on the 4th (pickup) beat for the next verse.
There are many variations of this song in which the last four objects are arranged in a different order (for example — twelve lords a-leaping, eleven ladies dancing, ten pipers piping, nine drummers drumming). There are also many parodies of this song, or modernized versions.
One way to interpret the lyrics of this song is that on each new day, all the gifts are given. This makes the total number of gifts given (counting 12 partridges, 22 turtle doves...) equal to 364, one fewer than the number of days in a year. There are 376 gifts if you count the pear tree as a separate gift from the partridge that resides in it. Of the 364 total items, 184 of them are birds.
It has been suggested by a number of sources over the years that the pear tree is in fact supposed to be perdrix, French for partridge and pronounced per dree, and was simply copied down incorrectly when the oral version of the game was transcribed. The original line would have been: "A partridge, une perdrix."
Some Christians assign symbolism to the gifts in the song. One of the most common versions of these assigned meanings is:
Sometimes "sent to me" is used instead of "gave to me"; also "five golden rings" is sometimes "five gold rings". Some argue that "gold" is correct and that "golden" is not. But because "gold" requires stretching into two syllables, the word "golden" seems to fit better. Additionally, some interpreters of the song argue that the five rings refer to coloring around the neck of birds such as pheasants, not jewelry.
The line four calling birds is an Americanization of the traditional English wording four colly birds, and in some places, such as Australia, the variation calling is supplanting the original. Colly is a dialect word meaning black and refers to the European blackbird Turdus merula.
The line four calling birds in some versions is four coiled birds. One version even had four mockingbirds.
The line nine ladies dancing in some versions is nine ladies waiting. The ladies themselves are also called dames a-dancing, as was the case with Romeo Muller's TV special from the early 1990s (he had eleven dames a-dancing).
In 1981, Hilary Knight published "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" in the Weekly Reader Children's Book Club, and she had Ten Fiddlers Fiddling.
As well, the last four verses are sometimes interchanged, so that one version of the song may have nine drummers, ten pipers, eleven ladies, twelve lords, or any other combination.
Straight versions of The Twelve Days of Christmas has been covered by many popular modern artists and groups, such as Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, Perry Como, and Tennessee Ernie Ford. The most famous versions are those recorded by Roger Whittaker and the Ray Conniff Singers. Andy Williams rewrote the song into "A Song And A Christmas Tree" on his "Christmas Album".
In Scotland early in the nineteenth century the song was started with:
"The King sent his lady on the first Yule day, A popingo-aye (parrot) Wha learns my carol and carries it away?"
Solomon
A Bubble!