katallison | (no subject)

That crazy kid

kormantic has a great thread going on "Christmas songs you love to hate," and I read through it, nodding at the usual obvious culprits (Holly Jolly Christmas, blargh! Jingle Bell Rock, kill me now!)

But in a subtler and more sinister vein, there are Christmas carols that seem perfectly innocuous and likeable--as long as you stay with the first and best-known verse. Which is all that people usually do stay with, bless them (unless you're in one of those dismal carol-singing groups where there's always *one* person who's grimly determined to sing through *every freaking verse*, at top volume, veins standing out on his or her forehead, while everyone else hums along uneasily, throwing in a tentative random word here or there).

All of which is just a lead-in to the sad tale of Why We Three Kings Will Give Me The Wiggins For The Rest of My Life.

We Three Kings, you say? But that's a nice inoffensive carol -- low-key, stays within a manageable range, soon over, and hey, Star of Light, and all that nice stuff! Ah, but you say that because you were never a hapless ten-year-old in the clutches of the St. Matthew's Episcopal Church Christmas Pageant, given the role of the Third King, and hence required to stand up in front of the entire congregation and, in a wavery breathy child's soprano, sing the following ineffably Christmassy lyrics:

Myrrh is mine; its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb.

I mean -- sealed in the stone-cold tomb??? *There's* the holly-jolly Christmas spirit for you, and granted I was a nervous child, but that thing freaked me *right* the hell out. Only a stern talking-to by Father Pitts, and a vigorous shove from my mother, got me out in front of the crowd to regale them with that little ditty, and for years afterward, if anyone in my family circle would launch into We Three Kings during the annual carol-singing, I would bodily leave the room.

Hell, that was probably one of those seminal experiences that set my feet on the dark and twisted path I still tread, muttering and wearing black leather jackets and causing innocent television characters lots of completely uncalled-for heartbreak.

(And for the record, as noted last year, my favorite carol is In the Bleak Midwinter. But only the first verse.)

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Maybe it says something about me that the myrrh verse has been my favorite since I was a wee child learning to play that on the piano.

::shaking head:: Ah, but you were clearly a sturdier and more emotionally resilient wee child than I was, Laura.

Right there with ya.

I always liked the myrrh verse, too, though I think I was a teen before I ran across it. I was, like, "They put this in a Christmas carol? Cool!"

It was like watching a TV show where they suddenly violate convention and let the hero shoot an unarmed man.

I just came across it too young, I think. (Honestly, the being talked-to by Father Pitts was unnerving enough in itself. He was a man who truly lived up to his name...)

But who doens't love songs sung by lecherous snowmen? And little kids who sing about being sealed in tombs?

That's what the holidays are all about!

To *some* of us, perhaps, missy. ::sniffing::

And I wish I had a decent recording of In the Bleak Midwinter to send you; it's all about (the first verse, at least) the frozen earth, and the frozen water, and the snow falling, snow on snow on snow. Fraser would like it, I think.

Hmm. It sounds restful, and yes, I do think Fraser would like it, just from your description.

Could he sing it? Would he sing it? While chopping wood, or cutting ice blocks to bring in to melt for bathwater? Hmm?

Well?

Have you ever read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany? He does a whole big thing about the "sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying" part. The book's worth reading, definitely, in any case. One of my all-time faves.

Funny, I wouldn't think an angst fan such as yourself would have a problem with those sorts of lyrics.

::running away::

I was a *child*, damn it! An innocent, hopeful, tender young child, with a heart full of love and eyes full of limpid faith in the goodness of humanity! I never *used* to be all about the sorrowing and sighing! It was all that lousy Christmas pageant!!

(And oddly, I've never read John Irving; something I need to remedy someday, I guess.)

Awww. I can just see your big anime eyes. (:

Yes, by damn, you need to read John Irving! He's only my second favorite living writer, geez! I could blither to you about him endlessly. In fact, if you want me to, I will. Cuz wow, is he ever amazing.

Now, you see,I've always liked We Three Kings just for that verse. Well, that and I like the tune.

See, now, how did *I* get the rep as the Big Angsty Angst-Person, when clearly all my friends are so much darker and more twisted than I? ::blinking with big innocent anime-character eyes::

:: glances over Kat's fic::

I have no idea! *g*

Admittedly the vid you've seen in progress is off of a Christmas album (doesn't everyone burn Joan of Arc to Xmas music???), so I can possibly see the confunsion.

See, now, how did *I* get the rep as the Big Angsty Angst-Person, when clearly all my friends are so much darker and more twisted than I?

raises hand Because they ENJOY it; they relish in it. You don't seem to. Your pain isn't kinky; it's strikes me as genuinely about suffering as something essential to the human condition in--hell, almost a Russian novel kind of way.

(Sorry, was that a rhetorical question?)

I actually stopped to comment because I was like--wow, that church anecdote explains everything! I was like, if this was a movie, that would be the KEY CINEMATIC FLASHBACK. Afterwards we'd all need cigarettes. And then the idiot movie therapist would sigh as if you were cured, which of course you wouldn't be at all, but therapists in movies suck and should be fired.

(Sorry, ignore me, I've been grading too long and I think I'm high off bad syntax.)

echoing others to say that's pretty much my favourite verse in the carol (which is high on my list of fave carols) - apparently I was a twisted young sprout, because I learned it quite young.

of course, that was back in the olden days before everything began to be sanitzed to protect "the children" - I bet any pageant these days would skip that verse altogether.

Hmm. Visualizing katallison as one of the Addams Family, droning out dolefully (perhaps large of eye, but in the goth sense of it, possibly somewhat predatory in appearance, certainly NOT doe-eyed) that rather startlingly ghoulish verse...
I think that skinny black dress and long sleeves with drooping lace cuffs really add something to the goth tone, don't you?
No, dear, I think you can leave the vampire fangs out, that would be hinting too much to the other nice children in the pageant what they have to look forward to later on...

I kind of like "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", but only if sung by a chorus of gay men whom one can hear chorally managing not to snigger when it comes to the verse about:

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace

(I should have put that on my Winterval wish list...)

But this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/yonmei/198421.html#cutid1) is my favourite Christmas carol, from first verse to last.

Erm, add me to the list who like that carol, and that particular verse. But then my favorite Christmas song is probably Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "I Believe In Father Christmas," so take that with a large hill of salt, Kat.

Oh Dear - Christmas trauma. I guess that I can now be thankful that I was an alto from an early age; we got to stand in the back and sing harmony. Boooorrrriiiinnnnnggggg. But I like Chrismas songs - the sadder and more minor key the better. I've got albums of Medieval and Renaissance music and it's all sad (and to the good) But my favorite Christmas song is "Grandma got run over by a raindeer" which probably says a bit more about me than I should confess in public.

namaste SF nancy

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I don't know that carol.

Re: I don't know that carol.

Re: I don't know that carol.

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xmas, the goth verse

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