- Date: 1958
- Composer: Katherine K. Davis
- Period: Modern (1910-1949)
Review
This comparatively recent song, in the style of a droning Medieval bourdon and a Spanish bolero, has already achieved the status of a Christmas holiday standard. With words and music by Katherine Davis, Henry Onorati, and Harry Simeone, the tune is concertized by choral groups and carolers, appears in the background ambience of shopping malls, and has been featured in such seasonal network television specials as the 1968 animated movie by the same name (written by Romeo Muller, and directed by Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin, and Takeya Nakamura II) in which the little drummer boy meets the three Magi on their way to Bethlehem. The tune was rendered by pop singer David Bowie in a December, 1977, Bing Crosby Christmas TV special, and the title was even used to name one of the remote-controlled little devices of destruction on the 2001 comedy-sport TV show Battlebots.The tune begins with a statement of the most basic of rhythms, a simple pulse every beat (the usual meter is notated as cut common time, or 2/2) like the primary drone given to older folk tunes throughout Europe. The melody begins on the tonic and ascends completely scalewise ("Come they told me...") with a back and forth rocking on the third and fourth scale steps for the onomatopoeic "pa-rum pum pum pum" imitating the child's drum. This is repeated for the next line, then the drone shifts to the dominant chord and the melody begins one step higher forming a simple ascending-descending arc ("Our finest gifts we bring, pa-rum pum pum pum"). The same ascent begins the next line, but moves higher to the flat-seventh step before a series of descents on the "drum" syllables. This use of the flat-seventh step shows the melody to actually be in a Mixolydian mode, similar to Maurice Ravel's famous Bolero. The initial line is then recapitulated and the verse ends.
For the introduction to the second verse, the rhythm slowly begins to gain interior momentum by doubling the second of the pulses. The second verse then repeats the melody of the first, either with the older simple pulse, or in some arrangements with the new doubling. Following the second verse, and introducing the third, the pulse doubles again. The third verse has exactly the same melody and harmonic changes as the others, and at its conclusion is the entire bolero rhythm, hidden in the background feeling of the instrumentalists, is fully expressed. It is quite conceivable that, following the plan of Ravel's composition, this piece could be orchestrated with a gradual accumulation of harmonics as well as rhythms. ~ "Blue" Gene Tyranny, All Music Guide
