With Christmas just around the corner, I thought I\u2019d learn a little about that sing-song staple of the season, The Twelve Days of Christmas, and share it here.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a song that most of us learn as kids. It\u2019s a song we teach our kids. It\u2019s a song that gets trundled out at many Carol concerts.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s a song that gets parodied, abused, and mangled in every conceivable way.<\/p>\n
The origins of the song may be lost forever, although some claim it as a Scottish song, while others believe it to come from France. Whichever country it\u2019s from, the words lead me to hazard a guess that it comes from indulgence in recreational pharmaceuticals. Some of the claims for its meaning might come courtesy of those same drugs\u2014for example, the song is purported to be a way for Roman Catholic children to learn their catechism in England at a time when Catholicism was illegal.<\/p>\n
The earliest recorded version (recorded as in printed, not audio\/video\u2026) is dated 1780. Those nice folks at Wikipedia have tabulated <\/a>various versions that have been published since then.<\/p>\n Frederic Austin, an English composer, was the originator of the tune and arrangement that is familiar to most of us these days. He committed it to paper in 1909, and gave us that rousing \u201cfive g-o-l-d rings!\u201d He apparently changed the four \u201ccolly birds\u201d to \u201ccalling birds\u201d as well, although I\u2019m pretty sure I learned the song with \u201ccolly\u201d\u2014I must have had a really old songbook! Two? Only two?!? There\u2019s a bazillion out there. But here are two particularly bad ones (my opinion and you\u2019re welcome to it.)<\/p>\n The parody that the wonderweb really really really wanted me to look at was one called \u201cThe Twelve Daze of Christmas\u201d. It was made famous by a well-known (in Vegas?) gal named Fay McKay. I watched several versions of it and wanted it to be funny but was disappointed. sample 2<\/a><\/p>\n The gifts are different alcoholic beverages, and as the song progresses, the singer becomes increasingly incoherent (or is that decreasingly coherent?).<\/p>\n There are many possible reasons why I couldn\u2019t raise a smile, among them being that I\u2019m not familiar with some of the drinks she mentions. A more likely reason though is that it just isn\u2019t my kind of humour.<\/p>\n Jeff Foxworthy, an American TV personality, did a version called the \u201cRedneck Days of Christmas\u201d. You can watch it here<\/a> if you\u2019re the kind of person that would do that.<\/p>\n Given that Christmas is a completely different experience in the southern hemisphere, the locals have made the gifts more relevant to their own surroundings.\u00a0 Presumably there aren\u2019t any colly birds in Australia, and I can\u2019t imagine that obtaining a cricket team\u2019s-worth of leaping lords is an easy job down under, so I can see the motivation for change.<\/p>\n But just like their cousins in the northern hemisphere, they can\u2019t make up their minds about what gifts should be given on which day. Here are samples of the Australian and Kiwi versions of the gifts.<\/p>\n
\nDespite Austin\u2019s standardization of the song, the order of the gifts has varied a few times. Perry Como had eleven lords, ten ladies and nine pipers (perhaps they couldn\u2019t hire enough competent pipers for the video?).<\/p>\nTwo Parodies…<\/h3>\n
\nsample 1 <\/a><\/p>\nFive Kangaroos?<\/h3>\n