Day 7, The Little Drummer Boy

It is Saturday and we’ve come to the end of the first week of Advent. I realize my readers are predominantly adults, but this song of Christmas is for the child in all of us.
“The Little Drummer Boy” is the third most often recorded Christmas song (according to one source). Let’s step back into the 1930s for a minute.

My parents were teenagers when the Great Depression of the ’30s hit our nation and the world. My father, at age 14, left the home he grew up in because “there wasn’t enough food for everyone”. He got a job hauling milk - for room and board...no salary. My mother also left the home she grew up in, to work for room, board, and a very small salary.

The village I pastored in had countless older people with stories of the times in the depression where jobs, food, money were all scarce. As a child, I grew up in a family where food and shelter were a given, but other than necessary things were scarce.

Katherine Davis was born in 1892 in the mid-west. A teen during the Great War, she grew into adulthood with a love of carols, folk music, and choral works from Europe and America. She ran across an old Czech tune during the Great Depression.  It was based on the idea of a boy who went to visit the baby Jesus with a drum to play.  

One day Davis was walking down the streets in her mid-western town.  She saw all the decorations for Christmas and she saw children with their faces staring into store windows, looking at toys and things she knew their parents would not be able to give them. 

It was 1940 and Europe had already started the Second World War and America lived in constant tension that this was next for their families.

She saw it all and in her mind, she went back to the first Christmas and remembered the Czech tune from years before.  She sat down and wrote the song, “The Carol of the Drum”. A poor boy summoned by the Magi had nothing to give to Jesus, the baby; so he took his drum and played it just for him...with all his might, and did his best, but wondering if it was enough, she added in the tune, “he smiled at me”. It was a song that spoke of peace when the world was soon to be at war.  It didn't make it to recording because shortly after the war broke out.

WWII saw other Christmas songs like “White Christmas” and “I’ll be home for Christmas” surge in popularity because they spoke of families separated and the longing for soldiers to come home while Davis’ song sat silent. 

It was over 10 years before it was first recorded.  In 1951, the Trapp Family Singers recorded the song for the first time. But again, it remained largely unknown.  It would be another composer, Harry Simeone, in 1958, who was asked by his record company to create a Christmas album.  He searched for both familiar and unfamiliar tunes.  He came across the song Katherine Davis had written almost 20 years before.  He reworked some of the words and tune and recorded it as “The Little Drummer Boy” for his Christmas album. It caught on, became an instant hit, and by 1962 "the Little Drummer Boy" was recorded over 100 times.  By the end of the decade it was the third most selling record behind "White Christmas" and "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"!

Why did it become so popular then?  Remember that although WWII was over, we had entered another war in Korea, and then were faced with nations squaring off over Atomic bombs.  Still the story is simple:  

A little boy, poor, without any material gifts to give, asks if he can play his drum for him. It's a gift he wants to give to Jesus - a drum to worship the new-born King...and he plays his best, and Jesus smiled at him..That is a great Christmas story.

Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When we come.

Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

There are many versions of this song on the web, but the most recent one done by King and Country took everyone by storm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPcA4bQjWFw