Last night after class I had to run over to the pet store to get Cash's dog food that had finally been received. Yes, I special order his dog food. Yes, I've become the type of person that I've always made fun of. Whatever. (Sidenote: The best part of that story is that I got TWO - 33 lb bags of his "holistic pet food incorporating all 5 food groups" for absolutely nothing. Merry Christmas to me.)
In the spirit of the season, I was tuned in to one of the bazillion continuous Christmas music stations and The Little Drummer Boy was playing. In all my years of listening to that song, never before have I paid attention to the line "the ox and lamb kept time". Apparently, I've always been too busy pa rum pa pum pum-ing to really notice that there are other lyrics involved in the song. At first I thought that I my ears had surely heard wrong. Afterall, I am the girl who thought that Grass Roots was singing about Monday night confession for years. And you know, the more I think about it...Werewolves of London makes so much more sense than Werewolves of Thunder. Plus, I am good friends with a girl who shall remain nameless that wondered why JT was singing about a sexy cat. Let's just say that should I ever find myself on some sort of televised game show/competition, it will not be "Don't Forget the Lyrics".
But thanks to a quick lyrics search via the information super highway, it turns out my ears did not deceive me this time. The ox and lamb did indeed keep time. How they did so is beyond me. The whole idea of an ox and lamb keeping time makes me laugh. Out loud. I had no idea that they are animals with a great sense of rhythm, but I've never really participated in that many barnyard hoe-downs either so I really shouldn't make assumptions that they would not be able to cut a rug. And finally, people, we have reached the moral of this nonsensical story - don't jump to conclusions about something without first researching the matter or about someone until you get to know them.
3 comments:
It may be because of such questionable lyrics, but that song is my least favorite of all Christmas songs. It's heretical, I know. But I've come to terms with it. I will start my own cult soon.
So I thought about using today's blog topic to answer the question about why an ox and a lamb were used to keep time...let's just say google, as a search engine, was unable to steer me in any clear direction. However, I did find this forum which I thought was particularly relevant. My favorite is a couple postings down where the talk about the racket such a drummer boy would produce, especially for a newborn:
"Unless the little boy had a set of rubber muffles to go on his drum, I would be seriously annoyed if he showed up at yonder stable pounding away at "Wipeout" for the baby Jesus. "
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=009186
on a side note, have you ever heard Dominic the Christmas Donkey? Here's a link to the song and also an excellent display of people with too much time on their hands:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQrdxtWgHbE
*Please note ability to incorporate Mr. Ed, John Kerry, and some pandas dressed up as KISS.
hee hee... too funny.
Have you noticed that a lot of lullaby's have weirdo lyrics?
"...and when then bow breaks the cradle will fall...and down will come baby cradle and all."
DOWN!
as in, DOWN FROM A TREE!
What the heck??
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