Carols in a Minor Key
I've been posting a Christmas carol daily on my Facebook in order to try to festive-up that medium, at least for the few people who regularly see what I post. I have always been drawn to the much-older carols, most of them in a minor key. They seem so haunting, so lovely, a way of embracing the uncertainty and the hope of the season, well before plastic, reindeer, and maxed out credit cards.
I particularly love the Wexford Carol, the Coventry Carol, and others like it. When I was little, my favorite was "We Three Kings"-- and I truly despised "Up On a Housetop" and other perky bits. I was puzzled by the calm acceptance of possible infidelity in "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," but I loved the peace and quiet of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear."
When people say they want to know a little about me, I have a standard "short cut" answer: I like my coffee black and my whiskey neat, no ice. I think I'll add that I like my Christmas carols in a minor key.
The one that comes to mind this morning is "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel"-- seems appropriate in these troubled times.
Take good care,
C
As a general rule, I always preferred minor key music--must be a holdover from my days as a depressed teenager (but I still dig the Cure). As for Christmas music, I can only handle small doses (the radio stations that play non-stop Christmas music from before Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve make my skin crawl), but O Holy Night makes me weak in the knees (probably because we are told to fall on them).
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