Artist: The Bird And The Bee
Song: Carol of the Bells
Worth Buying: Yes!
You will be interested in this song if you like: Carol Of The Bells and cool twists on holiday favorites
Tell Me More:
Hark how the bells, sweet silver bells,
all seem to say, throw cares away
Christmas is here, bringing good cheer
to young and old, meek and the bold
Ding dong ding dong that is their song
with joyful ring, all caroling
One seems to hear, words of good cheer
from everywhere, filling the air
Oh how they pound, raising the sound
o'er hill and dale, telling their tale
Gaily they ring, while people sing
songs of good cheer, Christmas is here
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
Merry, merry, merry, merry Christmas,
On on they send, on without end,
their joyful tone, to every home
Pretty isn't it? It's the original English lyrics to Carol of the Bells. Originally composed by Ukrainian composer Mykola Dmytrovych Leontovych and was premiered in 1916. The English lyrics would come later in 1936 by Peter Wilhousky (A more recent version would come about in 1946 by Minna Louise Hohman).
It's amazing how different a piece of music can sound to you when it's taken out of it's context. When I first heard this song it must have been in another language or it must have been an instrumental version, because Christmas was the last thing it made me think of. I was just a small boy and it felt dark and scary to me. But I loved it. Because it was mysterious sounding and filled my childhood head with a sense of mystery and wonder.
The best way I can describe how this song made my young mind feel, would be to say that it felt like I was standing in the middle of dark wood. And the trees and skies where whispering secret messages to me that I couldn't understand.
Later I would find out it was Christmas song and some of it's mystery was taken away by this fact. But it still sounded very powerful to me, and I still loved it.
As a teenager (and long before I was any kind of serious musician) I would parody the song in numerous ways by making up my own lyrics to it (Don't laugh, Weird Al made a career doing this).
A year ago (to my delight) I found a fantastic version of this song by the group The Bird And The Bee (Whose self titled album was reviewed on this very site). For the first time this song feels like a Christmas song to me. It feels happy. It feels like a celebration of the holidy. So this week on I would like to recommend The Bird and the Bee's version of Carol of the Bells.
listen to and purchase Carole of the Bells by The Bird And The Bee
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