OT Advent Calendar (& Hanukkah!) Day 4

Advent has always been my favorite time of year. Not only does it lead up to the festival of Christmas, but my birthday falls right around half way through. What’s more, I grew up in snowy Central New York—that’s the barren hinterlands of Upstate, for those in the city so nice they named it twice—and if I didn’t get a White Christmas, the Great Lakes were good for a storm around my birthday so there’d at least be a good beginning to the winter.

Advent is far from an untouched subject around these parts, so I’m clearly not alone.

Your OT Advent Calendar this year will be musical. We’ll talk about diamond-in-the-rough traditional tunes just waiting for renewed popularity, crimes against Christmas, the silly songs and the songs that have become modern traditions. We’ll also talk about the notion of true Christmas Carols, those which address the twelve days festival beginning on Christmas itself, including not just the one day-counting song but another. 

Let’s dive in, shall we?

Today’s tunes are the “Gower Wassail” and “Bring on the Light.”

The “Gower Wassail” is the result of interesting circumstances. Preserved, in English, on the Gower Peninsula of Wales, the community it comes from was made up of immigrants from Somerset in England. This cultural isolation allowed the traditional music to survive differently there without admixture.

Preserved for posterity in a London recording by Phil Tanner in 1936 and pressed onto 78’s, it has become so connected to the modern understanding of Wassailing that it is now also called “The Wassail Song,” as if it were the only one. 

Here is a 1947 recording of Tanner singing the song (beginning at the 1:20 mark).

A-wassail, a-wassail throughout all this town,
Our cup it is white and our ale it is brown.
Our wassail is made of good ale and cake,
Some nutmeg and ginger, it’s the best we could get.

Chorus (after each verse):
Fol-dee-dol, lol-dee-dol-dee-dol,
Lol-dee-dol-dee-dol, lol-dee-dol-dee-dee,
Fol-dee-derol, lol-dee-der-dee,
Sing too-ra-li-doh.

Our wassail is made of an el’berry bough,
Although, my good neighbour, we’ll drink unto thou,
Besides all on earth, we have apples in store,
Pray let us come in, for ’tis cold by the door.

We know by the moon that we are not too soon,
And we know by the sky that we are not too high.
We know by the stars that we are not too far,
And we know by the ground that we are within sound.

Now, master and mistress, thanks to you we’ll give,
And for our jolly wassail as long as we live.
And if we should live till another New Year,
Perhaps we may call and see who do live here.

I’m often struck by the ineffable poetry of the penultimate verse, particularly the last line.

There are additional verses which often appear, as well:

We hope that your apple trees prosper and bear
So that we may have cider when we call next year.
And where you have one barrel we hope you’ll have ten
So that we may have cider when we call again.

There’s a master and a mistress sitting down by the fire
While we poor wassail boys stand here in the mire.
Come you pretty maid with your silver-headed pin,
Pray, open the door and let us come in.

It’s we poor wassail boys so weary and cold,
Please drop some small silver into our bowl,
And if we survive for another New Year,
Perhaps we may call and see who does live here.

Sisters Shirley and Dolly Collins sang a version on their 1969 album Anthems in Eden.

Today is also the third night of Hanukkah. I’ll turn it over to my great friend Cantor Jessica Epstein of Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, New Jersey.

Born in Israel to American parents, songwriter Danny Maseng first came to the United States to star on Broadway in ‘Only Fools Are Sad.’ A playwright, actor, singer and composer, Danny has served as Evaluator of New American Plays/Opera-Musical Theater for the National Endowment for the Arts, as the Director of the Spielberg Fellowships for the FJC, as Spiritual Leader of URJ congregation Agudas Achim in NY and as Cantor of Temple Israel of Hollywood in California. Danny is most excited to now be the Chazzan and Spiritual Leader of Makom LA, a newish,Jewish, dynamic, post-denominational community, in Los Angeles.

Danny is also one of the most popular and respected composers of contemporary Liturgical and Synagogue music. He has been the invited guest of the American Conference of Cantors, the Cantor’s Assembly, as well as the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. His compositions are sung worldwide, with a recent Disney Hall appearance by the renowned Pink Martini, who performed Danny’s Elohai N’tzor, and a Carnegie Hall premiere of his ‘Bring on the Light’ by the New York Youth Chorus.

“Bring on the Light” is a contemporary-style choral piece mixing Hebrew and English.