Category: Christmas

Playing catchup: advent songs for December 9, 10, 11

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

It was just a busy sort of a weekend, sorry. I’m making up for it with a delightful threefer, featuring songs from three different continents. First off, here’s Miss Seychelles 2017 Falaine Dora with a video that features snow and even though, whatever what Paul Weller, Sting and Boy George say, there’s always snow in Africa at Christmas time, it seems unlikely to fall in the Seychelles where average December temperatures are between 25 and 30C.

(Shall we all go to the Seychelles for Christmas next year?)

Next is a beautiful song from Chilean writer, teacher, musician, politician, activist and all-round good egg Victor Jara, who squeezed a lot into his forty years (he was killed by Pinochet’s army in 1973, which isn’t very Christmassy but is nonetheless the case). This is really lovely, although there isn’t a video with it so you can listen while you wrap presents or bake a cake.

And for pudding, we have a not-very-musical but extremely heartwarming rendition of New Zealand song Pōhutukawa Tree, also known as the ‘New Zealand Christmas tree’, which looks like this and explains why when people go to New Zealand they don’t want to leave. Our version is from the New Zealand Kindergarten Association and I promise you, it’s worth a watch.

Advent song for December 8: Merry Christmas, Tanzania

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

You will think that you recognise this song from the Tanzania All Stars, but if you hold on for a bit it becomes more interesting. There are some Swahili (I am guessing) sections, and some lovely voices, and all in all I promise you will come away feeling a bit more Christmassy than you were at the start. Plus, as an added bonus, the video is surprisingly similar that for to East 17’s Stay Another Day, which has no right to be a Christmas song, but nonetheless definitely is.

Krismasi njema!

Advent song for December 7: Rueda, rueda por la montaña/El Burrito Sabanero, Peru

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

WHOOPS I forgot to post this yesterday. But, you get a twofer because the first song (whose title translates as ‘Roll, Roll Down the Mountain’ which sounds like fun) is Peruvian and is today’s actual entry, but there’s a bonus afterwards in the shape of the Venezuelan version of El Burrito Sabanero, the song we had on December 1, which if you’ll recall, and I can’t think why you wouldn’t, is Venezuelan in origin but has been adopted by Colombia.

This performance is from Vienna, but at least some of the musicians are from the appropriate countries so it totally counts. Come back later for today’s song.

Feliz Navidad!

Advent song for December 6: Rorogo Mai, Fiji

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

There is some controversy about this entry, because although it’s undoubtedly a Fijian carol, this performance is by a choir who seem to be based in Christchurch, New Zealand. It also seems to be in Māori (“Rorogo Mai” means “Listen to me”) which is not the same as Fijian. But it’s such a lovely rendition that we’re going to have it anyway. I’ve never been to Fiji, but I have been to Bora Bora and New Zealand, which are both roughly equidistant from Fiji, so here are photos from each of those places. See if you can tell which is which.

Left: some trees. Right: some trees.

Advent song for December 5: Christmas Wasikuku, Kenya

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This song is by Kenyan musician and gospel minister Chris Ngonye, who is from the town of Machakos and has a whole bunch more music here, and I’m going to say that if you need cheering up on a cold and damp Tuesday, you could do a lot worse than go and listen to all of it.

This one, though, is our selection for today. My proficient Swahili allows me to tell you that its title translates as “Christmas Holidays”, although further attempts to translate the lyrics resulted in my internet telling me it’s in Indonesian, which it isn’t, so I gave up.

Anyway it doesn’t matter because the best thing about this video is the dancing: this is one where it’s important you watch as well as listen.

Krismasi Njema!

Advent song for December 4: Boas Festas, Brazil

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

We’ve had this before, in 2012’s ‘Christmas songs from around the world’, but (a) it’s lovely and (b) Brazil takes up too much of the southern hemisphere’s total inhabited landmass to be left out of this year’s collection. Plus I have bonus content for you today in the shape a photo of Carlos Galhardo (1913-1985), who was one of Brazil’s biggest stars at the height of his career. Isn’t he dashing?

In addition to his singing career Galhardo was a bona fide matinee idol, appearing in such enticingly-titled pictures as Vamos Cantar, Pra Lá de Boa and my favourite, Banana-da-Terra, which probably isn’t about a man-eating banana, but I’m not going to let that stop me from imagining it (no spoilers please; the truth is almost always a disappointment).

(We also had it in 2019’s ‘good news stories’ edition, so I guess I must really like it.)

Advent song for December 3: Natal Telah Tiba, Indonesia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

…or, as you’ll know if you speak Indonesian, ‘Christmas Has Arrived’. This is our first power ballad of the year, and it’s a belter. Judika is a bona fide star in Indonesia, having apparently made his way effortlessly from contestant to winner to judge on various TV talent shows. His YouTube channel has 4.17 million subscribers, and he is married to a former beauty queen. Once again I have Google-translated the lyrics into English and once again, I’m going to confess that it wasn’t really worth the effort.

Selamat Natal!

Advent song for December 2: Lelo Toyei Toyemba Noel, DRC

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

…which is, as you no doubt know, Lingala for “Today we come to celebrate Christmas”. This is the Bana Ngayime choir of Kinshasa (capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for those at the back), and as far as I can make out all of their songs are as joyful as this one, so if today is the day you’re putting up your tree, I can recommend leaving this playlist going as you do it, to keep your energy levels up as you discover that none of the lights work and the fairy’s wings have fallen off. Noël ya esengo!

Advent song for December 1: Mi Burrito Sabanero, Colombia

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music2 Comments

You guys, I’ve just found a post sitting in drafts with my Oscars predictions for 2023. It’s been that sort of a year. But never mind! It’s nearly 2024, which is bound to be loads better. Isn’t it?

Anyway. We begin in Colombia, which is mostly in the northern hemisphere, but enough of it isn’t that it qualifies for our purposes. I am easing you in gently, you see. Mi Burrito Sabanero is actually a Venezuelan song originally, but for reasons which I have not entirely been able to discern it is now beloved of Colombians, which is lucky for us because Venezuela is all in the northern hemisphere so we wouldn’t have been allowed it otherwise.

(I am hoping that you, like me, will get a gentle geography lesson over the course of the next twenty three days.)

Anyway, don’t be put off by how much the first singer sounds like Ann Stephens in They’re Changing Guards At Buckingham Palace (as my mother once said, ‘I can only think she must have been the producer’s daughter’), because it gets nicer once the choir join in. I was going to translate the lyrics for you, but they appear to be largely nonsense, so I haven’t bothered, but with my expertise in Spanish I can tell you that it seems to be about a donkey travelling to Bethlehem. Plus the donkeys in the video are wearing Santa hats, so it is definitely a Christmas song, even though it’s only Colombian if you squint.

Sand in your stocking

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

Well, that was a funny old year, wasn’t it? I think it’ll be about mid-2025 before I get my head around most of it. But as always when December strikes, all other thoughts leave my head as I dive into the world of dear-god-do-I-have-to-think-of-another-musical-theme?

Fear not, though: once again, inspiration has struck and for 2023, which is if you’re counting is the sixteenth year of this nonsense, we will be travelling Down Under to the sunny side of the globe. Twenty four Christmas songs from countries of the southern hemisphere await you, and I feel confident that at least some of them will delight you as much as they have me. Kia ora!