Christmas Mondegreens

In case you were not paying close attention when I blogged about Christmas mondegreens seven years ago, I reiterate for your benefit that a mondegreen is a mis-hearing of a poem or song lyric, ideally one precipitating gales of uncontrollable laughter. The word mondegreen was coined in 1954 by Sylvia Wright in an essay titled “The Death of Lady Mondegreen” in Harper’s Magazine.  Wright recounted that as a child she used to hear a Scottish ballad that went (she thought):

      Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,

      O, where hae ye been?

      They hae slain the Earl o’ Murray

      And Lady Mondegreen.

What they had done, of course, was to have slain the Earl and laid him on the green.  

Mondegreens are still with us, and Christmas seems to encourage them. A fellow named Gavin Edwards has even written a whole book called Deck the Halls With Buddy Holly, in which he's collected a bunch of them. The most famous Christmas mondegreen is probably “Round John Version” in “Silent Night,” but there are plenty of others, all of which purport to be actual misapprehensions by some befuddled listener. You may have heard of Rudolph’s companion, “Olive, the other reindeer,” or perhaps you have sung joyfully, “Noël, Noël, Barney’s the King of Israel.” Others have proclaimed “Get dressed, ye married gentlemen, let nothing through this May.”

“Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” so the song says, and some people believe “they’re going to build a toilet town all around the Christmas tree.”  Probably the same people revel in a “Winter Wonderland” because “in the meadow we can build a snowman and pretend that he is sparse and brown” and “later on we’ll perspire as we drink by the fire.”

The champion, however, is the poor benighted soul who conjured up the painful image in “The Christmas Song” of “Jeff’s nuts roasting on an open fire.”

The Bard of Buffalo Bayou has a little trouble these days hearing song lyrics (and other things, as well), but he managed to come up with this seasonal ditty; then, giving a nod, up the escalator he rose.

                 CAROL FOR A STREET-CORNER SANTA

      

      It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,

      And I feel in very fine fettle.

      But the Salvation Army

      Sent its band to alarm me

      By playing a carol in front of my kettle.

     It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,

     And it’s fun to be St. Nicholas,

     But I find it bewilderin’        

     That some little children

     Like to pull on our beards and pinch us and tickle us.

     It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas,

     In fact, I think Christmas is here.

     I’ll just pick up my check

     And then hope like heck

     That I won’t have to put on a red suit next year.