h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

These aren't the ones that get overdone at this time of year.

"Once as I remember"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRiD60EFnfo

"Cherry tree carol"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svqBf57NOps

"Maria walks among the thorns"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkhBYVwvLAY

"All my heart this night rejoices"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOiaxE8Yii8

My choir is singing a Christmas carol concert on Monday in the National Concert Hall. We'll be singing the Cherry Tree Carol as part of a medley by Vaughan Williams.

That's nice.

I came across one by that title but with a different tune. Let me look for Vaughan Williams's version and see how it compares.

Believe me, "Maria durch ein Dornwald ging" gets done to death around these parts. German Christmas carols are all dirges.

I sang it in high school, and never heard it anywhere else in the next 55 years. It may well be new to those outside Germany.

Here's a French dirgelike carol . It is so obscure that no version of it exists in Youtube. I can find the tune here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wl4u8lnDQs
But instead of the words in the link, substitute these lyrics:

Gentle Mary laid her young child lowly in a manger bare.
Where he was the undefiled, to the world a stranger there.
"Fear not," sang the angel, "let nothing you afright,"
While he slept all through the night.

These lyrics do not exist anywhere on the Internet. This is the epitome of obscurity.

I'm sure you would appreciate this if you could understand the lyrics. Not dirgy at all - instead filled to the rim with puns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgfOSePLst4

And another one. Same band, still very punny (you may recognize the melody):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm7nEo1GG88

There is more, but I'm not going to spam your thread, so skip this one if you've had enough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkD8LCFFw4g

I love Danish Christmas carols. I have this CD, for instance:
http://www.amazon.com/Danish-Christmas-VARIOUS-ARTISTS/dp/B000035Q7Z

That is top of the shelve music, my good man. I congratulate you on your excellent taste, sir!

(Not that there is anything wrong with contemporary Dnish pop as such, mind you. It's just from another shelve.)

My favourite carol is Holy and the Ivy.