(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Kitchen Table Kibitzing 12/19/2023: Songs of the Season Vol. 9 [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-12-19 Stanislaw Maslowski: Moonrise (1884) Good evening, Kibitzers! Since 2015, I have done a winter holiday diary about some song(s) that is/are “not generally heard over supermarket and mall PA systems”. Here is a link to last year’s edition, which opens with a list of links to all the previous years. This year, my attention was initially attracted by a Ukrainian version of what we call Carol of the Bells in English, which has little to do with the original Ukrainian lyrics. I had already tucked away a Finnish/Swedish song, So it seemed like I had the bones of a diary for this year of songs from Northern/Eastern Europe. Let’s do it! What we call "Carol of the Bells" was originally the Ukrainian song Shchedryk. The song in the form we know it (except for the English lyrics) was arranged by Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych in 1916, based on a traditional Ukrainian folk chant welcoming the New Year (“shchedrivka”). The Ukrainian National Chorus brought the song to Carnegie Hall in 1921; it was subsequently arranged for orchestra by Peter J. Wilhousky, who added the English words about bells. Here, it's sung beautifully a cappella by a Ukrainian singer who is called Eileen on her YouTube channel, using multiple tracks to create harmony. She first sings the English translation of the Ukrainian words, and then sings the Ukrainian. [2:07] Just to give the instruments a chance, here are cellist Kevin Krentz and four of his high-school-age students, Ava Rosenbaum, Kevin Lu, Ann-Marie Vo, and Eric Schindler, performing the Pentatonix arrangement of the song. [3:26] Varpunen jouluaamuna (Sparrow on Christmas Morning; Swedish Sparven om julmorgonen) is a Finnish song. It's based on an 1859 poem by Zacharias Topelius, who was Finnish but wrote some of his works in Swedish, including this one. The beautiful melody by Otto Kotilainen is one of several this poem has been set to, but it's the most appealing part of the song to the non-Finnish-speaker. The Victorian era was rather obsessed with dead children, and that is understandable because a lot of children died; Topelius had lost a one-year-old son the year he wrote the poem. In the song, a girl sits at her doorstep on Christmas morning and sees a hungry sparrow with nothing to eat. She gives the bird seeds, and is rewarded by God with the revelation that the sparrow is actually the soul of her late beloved little brother. Here are the Finnish lyrics as sung by Suvi Teräsniska, roughly subtitled in English. [3:43] This is the original Swedish-language poem, sung by Elina Bomström. [4:25] Jul jul strålande jul is not really a folk song, but a published 1921 Swedish Christmas song. (From YouTube notes: "This song is probably the most Christmasy song in all of Sweden, this you could ask any Swede.") This pretty a cappella version, sung by YouTuber jessacupoftea, displays both the Swedish words and their English meaning. (If you follow along watching and listening, the number of Swedish words that either sound like or look like their English counterparts is rather startling. "Over" is apparently just the same word with an umlaut, and isn't that what Blue Öyster Cult has been trying to tell us for decades?) [2:12] And since I love a cappella harmony, here is award-winning Swedish men's chorus Zero8 giving a very artistic performance of the song. [2:55] Well, I can't resist adding a couple of unrelated songs. Frosty the Snowman is a song that ordinarily just annoys me beyond my ability to understand why. But here, from 1989, is a version I actually like: Leon Redbone and Dr. John, from Redbone's Christmas Island album. [2:03] I am new to Bill McClintock's YouTube channel, which is all about mashups of two very different songs. I haven't listened to many yet, but his MO seems to be, take two unrelated songs with similar scansion, and change the key of one song, phrase by phrase, to fit it into the chord structure of the other song. (It’s hard to describe, but you will get it in a minute.) As a finale to this diary, having nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the diary, may I present his festive Dirty Deeds Around the Christmas Tree, starring AC/DC and Brenda Lee. Don’t let the beginning worry you; Miss Brenda will get a chance to sing. [*Late note: RIP drummer Colin Burgess.] [3:15] As always, I invite you to share your favorite songs, holiday or not, in the comments! 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