Wrapped in metal, wrapped in ivy

[sovay]

Driving around on errands, I seem to have discovered that my tolerance for Christmas music has zeroed out unless it falls into the class of traditional carols, i.e. can be used for wassailing, first appeared in Latin, was arranged once by Benjamin Britten. I relayed this sentiment to spatch and he promptly broke out SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." When we saw the news of the death of Dave Mallett, I played him my favorite version of the "Garden Song," from Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger's Precious Friend (1981). I remain entertained that the official website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had to put up a short post attesting to the historical reality of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Penalty for Keeping Christmas 1659. The catchiest music I have heard on the radio lately—WHRB, natch—is almost certainly Auntie Christ's "I Don't" (1997). I am all for amending our still-critical drought, but these 100% chances of rain could be snow any time now.

Comments

[ethelmay]

My son was in a boychoir, and we went to a Messiah singalong when his voice was starting to change. He and I got adjacent seats on the edges of the soprano and alto sections (I had sung [chorus, not solo] alto in the Messiah many years previously; he had only sung the Hallelujah Chorus). During the warm-up he went all the way up with the sopranos and most of the way down with the basses. Then he sight-sang right through. It was such fun.

[selkie]

What a fun memory, indeed! Also, I am impressed by a young person with the mastery to sight-sing Baroque stuff.
Our son's voice is revamping into a baritone by way of a high-speed run over a suspension bridge with a lot of expansion links in it, at the moment, and he is... an accompanist and not a singer, bless, but he does *like* to sing.

[ethelmay]

I think he was doing a fair amount of instant-echo of the women around him, and he had probably heard some of it before. But I was still impressed. These days (he's 26) he does shape-note but not much other music.