#MusicMonday – December 11, 2017

On the (almost) first day of Christmas, Music Monday gave to me…

When I was in sixth grade, my elementary school’s fifth and sixth grade chorus (yes, it was a combined chorus) sang the infamously long “Twelve Days of Christmas.”

12days-1

As each gift is given, an Art Club-created piece of artwork is held up of each gift.  And at certain parts, members of the Art Club would parade by as some of the other gifts (four calling birds, eleven drummers drumming, nine ladies dancing).  And at one point during the daytime show, a calling bird fell on the stage.  It was so funny.  I felt bad that it happened (I know the person), but I’m hoping that 22 years later, he’d laugh at it.

I have the video, but I’ll never share it, because I wouldn’t want someone to do it to me (though I’d seriously find it funny now if it had been me).

Anyway, there are many different versions of the song, but there are two I particularly love.

One’s the oh-so-traditional version, done by some beloved puppets and a certain human singer, and the other…the version we can all relate to by the week of Christmas.

First up, the 1979 version of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” as sung by the Muppets and John Denver!

Five GOLD RINGS!  Ba-da-bum-bum-bum!

As I said, this version was featured on the Muppers special John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together, originally airing on December 5, 1979.  The special was never released to home video format, but a soundtrack was released by RCA Records in October 1979 (and later re-released by Denver’s Windstar label, abridged, and later in 2006 fully restored).  “The Twelve Days of Christmas” appears different on every release.

My mom and I first heard this version on Sirius/XM Radio during the holidays a few years back.  We particularly loved the Ba-da-bum-bum-bum part.  I couldn’t get this out of my head for days!

And the version everyone can relate to by the week of Christmas, “The Twelve Pains of Christmas”…

This song was released in 1988 by Bob Rivers and his Comedy Corp on Rivers’ first Christmas-themed parody album, Twisted Christmas.  Rivers (at the time) was an on-air radio personality at WIYY-FM in Baltimore, Maryland.  The album reached #19 on the US Holiday Charts, and was followed up by three more Christmas-themed parody albums, I Am Santa Claus (1993), More Twisted Christmas (1997), Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire (2000), and White Trash Christmas (2002).  Rivers is now retired from radio and recording, but this song still sees plenty of airplay at Christmastime, almost thirty years after it gets released.

And my brother has nailed the “Hangovers!” part perfectly.

And there you have it, the infamously long song about all the things your true love gave to you for Christmas.

Oh, and if you must know, the cost of all these gifts in 2017 totals $34,558.65 (source: this article from radio station B985 – Augusta, Maine).  That article also breaks down the total cost of each gift.

Hey, someone had to figure it out, right?

It wasn’t me!

Oh well, the Christmas music keeps on rolling.  Come back next week as we reach our final week before Christmas and our next Music Monday selection!

Have a great Music Monday! 🙂

One comment

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s