Category: Caroldies (parodies of carols)

Somewhere around the year 1700, European churches began to allow Christmas carols to be sung. Before then only David’s Psalms were considered holy enough to be sung. Nahum Tate, so the story goes, was inspired by Luke 2:8-14 and dared to noodle out lyrics improving on The New Writ. It became “When Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night” and was sung by different melodies over the centuries, including that of ‘It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.’ Eventually music from an opera by Handel became what we know today, according to Ace Collins’s books about the origins of carols.

Apparently the British make joke with ‘When Shepherds WASHED Their Socks by Night’ they way we do with ‘Jingle bells, Batman smells….’ A young bloke carries on through this standard travesty with youth and  cheek.  Crisis Christmas gobble out their few funny verses through a relentlessly paced high-pitched organ karaoke.

Mistletoe and Swine play an annoying medley of “When Shepherds Washed Their Socks/Good King Wenceslaus” as if they were they the class clowns trying to get you to let your hair down (or smack them). Sheep bleating is just what this melody needed. Not.

The Mason Family sing [badly] their own version of “When Shepherds Washed their Socks by Night” without much humor besides the initial wordplay. It’s still a fine looking family doing what Santa-Dad says.

The bestest caroldy of them all, however, is a little known one by Vancouver’s homegrown humorists The Yule Be Sorrys. Their 1994 album Oh Holey Socks features “The New While Shepherds Washed Their Socks by Night.” (Yeah we’re still on that old joke, but this time it’s funny.) (At least it seems to make fun of an actual French soap product.) (And they’re Canadian.) (So, it’s not offensive.)

Because a good lampoon requires wit, here are lyrics:

While shepherds washed their socks by nite
All seated ‘round the tub,
A bar of Starlight soap came down,
And they began to scrub!
“What wondrous sight is this?” they cried,
“A miracle divine!
Our socks no longer will hang stiff
As they dry on the line!”
Then from this modest bar of soap
There spewed such copious suds,
Without a word these good shepherds
Tore off their filthy duds!
They hurled their grubbies in the tub
And they scrubbed them then and there,
While “Cleanliness is next to godliness”
Intoned their prayer.
Then gazing heavenward they saw
An awesome superstar.
A chorus line behind him chimed
“Come to the Starlight bar!”
“Good, tidy, neat and clean we’ll be.”
They joyously proclaimed.
“Our stockings will no longer stink,
Nor will their soles be stained!”

It’s October, and holiday displays are creeping in past the Halloween trash and Star Wars presumption. I know, I know, it’s all about merchandising and Capi Capi Greed. But haven’t you heard enough songs about Christmas every day of the year? When should you get in the spirit? There’s no time like the present, and there’s no present like the timing.

Now, Paul and Storm have a fine funny song out there “The Way-Too-Early Christmas Song.” But it’s about November being too early. I’m talking about the tenth month (named “octo-” for the eighth).

So, my salute to premature immaculation goes to TryHardNinja, an indie msuician of considerable humor (at least after he got over Minecraft songs) who has lampooned Justin Bieber’s “Mistletoe,” deservedly not only ’cause it is syrupy as hard candy in a mud puddle, but also ’cause it was released 2011 in mid-October. (I do have my eye on even better “Mtoe” parodies for the future….)