One of the joys of writing the material on this site is that I have an excuse to dive into the meanings of Christmas songs that I’ve been hearing all my life and always vaguely wondered about. “The Little Drummer Boy” certainly falls into that category. I sort of assumed that it fell into the genre of stories about gifts brought to the Christ child, and indeed it does, but there’s a surprising amount to say about it beyond that general idea. Let’s start with its origin. (As I’m writing this post I’m listening to the Pentatonix version; you can access the video below.) The song was written in 1941 by a woman named Katherine K. Davis, an American composer and music teacher. Out of her 600+ compositions she is known today only for this one piece. When first published, the heading included the words “Czech Carol freely transcribed by K.K.D.” However, the original carol has never been found, although there is apparently a Czech traditional lullaby that is sometimes listed as the source even though it doesn’t really resemble the carol. Who knows? And I don’t read Czech, so even if I could find it I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it means!
The song was first brought to prominence by the Trapp Family Singers, who recorded it for Decca Records in 1955. You can listen to them below, too. (I am constantly amazed at the riches available on YouTube.) When you do so, though, you’ll recognize that their arrangement is somewhat different from what you usually hear, and indeed the standard sheet music lists two composers/arrangers in addition to Davis: Henry Onorati and Harry Simeone. There’s a whole backstory about these two people, who worked at Dot Records along with someone named Jack Halloran. The song was included in an album called “Christmas Is A-Comin'” in 1957 performed by the Jack Halloran Singers, with Halloran as the arranger and Onorati as the producer. But somehow when the single of the song was released using the same singers, Onorati was listed along with Simeone as the arranger, and Halloran was nowhere on the label. There were finger cymbals included and a small cut, but those were the only changes from Halloran’s version. That single went on to be a huge hit. I don’t know how much royalty money Davis ever got from all this, but Halloran apparently didn’t get any. Halloran’s daughter Dawn said, “Simeone succeeded in getting composing credit (along with Henry Onorati and Davis) for a piece he had nothing to do with.”
Well, enough about backstage backstabbing. On to the song itself. Since we have no access to the original folk song we can’t mine that. However, the storyline in Davis’ lyrics is very similar in essence to a 12th-century French tale called “The Juggler of Notre Dame,” in which a juggler performs in front of a statue of Mary in the cathedral, with said statue coming alive, smiling at him and/or throwing him a rose. Did that tale somehow travel to Czechoslovakia and get transformed into the drummer/Christmas version? Who knows. There is another French Christmas song, though, that specifically mentions a drummer, although the whole Mary-baby-smiling scenario doesn’t occur: “Patapan,” written in the 1600’s. In it a drummer and a flutist are invited to play their music, although it’s not at all clear who they are: “Willie, take your little drum, Robin take your flute and come!” One interpretation has the musicians being shepherds, but that’s not spelled out in the text. Another similarity to our song is the use of onomatopoeia (you do remember that word from high school English class, don’t you?), with “patapan” as the sound of the drum and “tu-re-lu-re-lu” as the flute, echoing the “h’rum-pums.” There’s also a little more about the actual Christmas story in “Patapan” than in this selection, with the lines “Thus the men of olden days for the King of Kings to praise,” and “God and man are now become more at one than fife and drum.”
Well, back to the song at hand. One question you might ask, if you look closely at the words, is, “Who is ‘they’? As in, ‘Come, they told me.'” I’d never really thought about it before myself, but it seems clear that “they” are the Wise Men, or Magi, from the words “Our finest gifts we bring/To lay before the king.” The shepherds didn’t bring gifts. So is the boy supposed to be a part of the Magi caravan? It would be so interesting to find the original text, but I guess that’s not going to happen. Oh well, There are people who just despise this song, but I’ve always looked forward to hearing it at Christmas, and I’ve always especially loved the line “The ox and lamb kept time.” I’m not exactly sure what that’s supposed to mean, but I’ve always pictured those two animals sort of waving a front foot in rhythm with the drum. You can keep that image in mind, if you’d like!
And be sure to watch the two videos below:
