Advent song for December 24: Setepe, Lesotho

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Let’s start with the disclaimers. First of all, this isn’t a song, but a dance. And second of all, it cuts off halfway through, devastatingly. But I love it so much, and I’m so confident that you will too, that it makes the cut as our 2023 swan song anyway. The Setepe is a Christmas dance from Lesotho, and I’ve found various versions but this is by some way the most joyful. Of especial note are the two kids who are too cool to dance and stand and watch the drummers instead, and the drummer who drops his hat and keeps drumming as he retrieves it.

Whichever hemisphere you’re in, I wish you a lovely Christmas and let’s all determinedly demand a better 2024. At the very least, let’s all learn this dance and meet up this time next year to perform it.

Full screen and volume up for this one, kids.

Kereseme e monate!

Advent song for December 23: Merry Christmas Samoa

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

Family bands are a wholesome thing, aren’t they? The Von Trapps, the Osmonds, (some of) the Jackson Five. Here is a photo of my family wholesomely singing Walking In The Air together and definitely not taking the music part of the evening too seriously while a party goes on around us. Wholesome, see?

Equally wholesome is the Pacific Love Band, which has eight members, all relatives of founder Lale Talo who left Samoa and lived in New Zealand for over twenty years before returning home to look after his widowed mother and taking the opportunity to scoop up a whole lot of young musicians and provide the help and the resources they need to become the next generation of Samoan recording talent.

What did I tell you? That’s right. Wholesome.

Manuia le Kerisimasi!

Advent song for December 22: Carol of the Birds, Australia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

We’ve had this twice before, I think, but that’s OK because it’s beautiful and is now part of my regular rotation of Christmas music (which you can find here, should you need ten hours’ worth of seasonal songs on Christmas Day, or indeed at any other time). ‘Orana’ is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘Welcome’, and since even I am not so crass as to try to find out what the Aboriginal Australian version of ‘Merry Christmas’ is, I’ll just round today off with a “Merry Flamin’ Chrissie!’ and you have to imagine it in Alf Stewart‘s accent.

(If you know who Alf Stewart is, btw, that 6m35s compilation of his best rants will 100% brighten up your day.)

Advent song for December 21: Gospel song, Namibia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I need a linguist to help me out here, please. The official language of Namibia is English, but there are at least eleven other languages spoken across the nation, and although I’m reasonably sure it isn’t German or Afrikaans, I’m no closer than I was when I started an hour ago to finding out what language this is sung in.

It doesn’t matter all that much, though, because the reasons I chose this song are 1. It features a ginger Jesus and 2. the slightly tentative, not-quite-in-unison (but beautifully tuneful) singing reminds me very much of that bit at a Russian Orthodox church services where two priests have to sing something they only mostly know and half busk it.

(This observation will only mean anything to about six other people, sorry.)

Advent song for December 20: Meri Krismas long Yu, Papua New Guinea

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

You will recognise some, but not all of this tune, although the words are not only different but are in the Papua New Guinea language of Tok Pisin (yes, that does mean ‘talk pidgin’, although the language is a creole rather than a pidgin and if you don’t know the difference, or would like to know more about how languages like this come about then this is a good place to start).

You know what? It’s hard to find a Christmas song from Papua New Guinea! But since the only time I have been there I left after an hour (the full and torrid tale is here, should you need to know more), I felt I owed it this at least.

Meri Krismas!

Advent song for December 19: Blessed Christmas, Solomon Islands

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

And now, for something completely different. Here is a boy band who are probably from the Solomon Islands (but the channel owner definitely is) with an impressive EIGHT members (Dedeh, MC Leo, Jnr Paul, DJay, Genexis, Dee, Jux and Mal). It’s very much exactly what you’d expect a boy band’s Christmas single to sound like, although there is a startling (in a good way) moment at 00:27, and it’s worth watching all the way through, both for the excellent shirts and to spot the one who’s adorable in a Stephen-Gately-aww-there’s-a-baby-one! sort of a way.

And in case you needed a little help too, here it is:

Catchup time again

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

It’s just been a busy weekend, OK? I used to write these in advance and then schedule them for the appropriate day, but that was back when I was less chaotic. I did at least make the list at the start of the month, so today you have a delightful line-up featuring songs from Zimbabwe, Bolivia, the Cook Islands (me neither, but I’ve checked so you don’t have to).

See?

Do you think that’s the International Date Line? I guess the wiggles are so that Polynesia can all have the same day at the same time.

(I crossed the IDL once. I had no February 9th 2019. Just didn’t happen.)

Anyway, admin over with, here are our four tracks:

We begin with Zimbabwean rhumba artist Juntal, and make sure you watch the video to this because it’s completely joyful:

Next up is Navidad en el Campo from Bolivia, which is an adaptation of a traditional Christmas song, although it also sounds a bit like something the choristers of King’s College might sing on Christmas Eve. The result is quite delightful (but the video is not necessarily worthy of your attention:

From the Cook Islands comes Kia Orana, which is Cook Islands Māori (like New Zealand Māori but not the same thing) for ‘hello’ or, literally, ‘may you have a long and fulfilling life’, which is a lot of meaning to fit into two words. This is a lovely song, but it has no video at all so feel free to go off and do the ironing while it’s playing:

And finally, this South African song, Sizalwe Indodana, which is Zulu for ‘A son was born to us’, is lovely, and will set you up for the rest of the day:

Advent song for December 14: Ya Viene el Niñito, Ecuador

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This is cheery! And in a language I almost understand, so I can tell you that the title means “The baby boy is here” and that the words mean, roughly, “I wish he’d shut up and go to sleep”; a sentiment with which we can, I imagine, all agree.

I have realised, incidentally, that I should have added the country of origin to the title of each of these posts, so I’m going to go back and do it, which may mean if you are a subscriber that you suddenly get fourteen emails, in which case I apologise in advance.

This is a very cute song, made cuter by the arrangement as well as the definitely-not-creepy kids’ voices.

Feliz Navidad (again)!

Advent song for December 13: Noera, teie Noera, Tahiti

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Here is a meal I ate in Tahiti. It’s got popcorn on it! And it was very good, so next time you’re in Pape’te I can recommend Cali.stro, which despite calling itself a steakhouse (are there cows in Tahiti? I don’t think I saw any) rustled up this delicious tuna tartare for me.

Did you know that there are thirty eight Polynesian languages? Although quite a lot of them are fairly similar, since the ancient Polynesians seemingly liked nothing better than a bit of island-hopping. In Tahitian, Noera, teie Noera seems to mean ‘Christmas, this Christmas’, which would also point to a possible French influence, and here it’s sung by Guy Laurens – who for the same reason I imagine is actually a ‘Gee’ with a hard-G – along with an invisible choir.

‘Ia ‘oa’oa i te Noera ‘e ‘ia maita’i i te mau ‘ōro’a matahiti ‘āpī!

Advent song for December 12: Christmas in Zambia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

It’s taken me longer than you’d expect to research this post, because although the song is in English there are a couple of words which aren’t, and since there are multiple languages spoken in Zambia I’ve been putting each of them through Google Translate to see what makes the most sense, and I can now reveal that none of them does, quite. Here are our options:

And we do not have one-horse open sleighs
All we have is nakampelele

Which means either ” all we have is I prayed” or “all we have is camped”. I think we’ll go for the first one.

And though Santa we’d really like to see you
Until you go, we’ll be outside catching inswa

Which is either “we’ll be catching sheep” or “we’ll be catching baby” or “we’ll be catching insurance”. Again, probably the first one, although I’m less certain here.

Anyway, the song is by Zambian musician Tasha Nyambe and here I’ve gone for an acoustic version which is quite delightful, although you can go for the glitzier recorded version should you choose.

Khirisimasi yabwino, or Ikrisimusi emyoli, or Khisimusi lerinene! (Actually, looking at those options, I suspect we’re talking dialects rather than languages NOBODY @ ME.)