On the first day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the second day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the third day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the fourth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the fifth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the sixth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the seventh day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the eighth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
eight mayors a-filking,
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the ninth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
nine lazy dentists,
eight mayors a-filking,
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the tenth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
ten louts a-sleeping,
nine lazy dentists,
eight mayors a-filking,
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the eleventh day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
eleven sneakers sniping,
ten louts a-sleeping,
nine lazy dentists,
eight mayors a-filking,
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
On the twelfth day of Christmas
my true love gave to me
twelve dumber dumplings,
eleven sneakers sniping,
ten louts a-sleeping,
nine lazy dentists,
eight mayors a-filking,
seven Swansea women,
six geezers slaying,
five rolling things!
four scalded bards,
three henchmen,
two purple gloves,
and a cartridge in a bare tree.
Back around the mid-'70s I was working at a bank and had taken on, with a friend, the job of putting out a monthly newsletter. For December, I made a simple drawing of a small Christmas tree with no needles. The only ornament was a bullet: a cartridge in a bare tree. If you search the term "cartridge in a bare tree" on Google, you'll find plenty of examples, but the Internet wasn't available back then. That's how humor works - many different people come up with the same thing independently at different times.
Last evening I saw a video of a men's a capella group parodying "The Twelve Days of Christmas." There were no lines in the video anything like what I've written, but it got me thinking. What if someone misheard every line of the song? The first thing I came up with after recalling the cartridge in a bare tree was "five rolling things."
A misheard lyric is called a Mondegreen, after a misheard line in the 17th century Scottish ballad "The_Bonnie_Earl O' Murray." It was misheard by American writer Sylvia Wright in her childhood. Here's what she heard:
Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,
Oh, where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl Amurray,
And Lady Mondegreen.
The last line was written as "And laid him on the green."
Wright did an article for Harper's Magazine in 1954, and since then there have been many examples of misheard lyrics. You can read more about Mondegreens in Wikipedia. One collector of them, Gavin Edwards, has published several books of Mondegreens, some illustrated. I have three: 'Scuse Me While I Kiss this Guy, He's Got the Whole World in his Pants and When a Man Loves a Walnut. He's even done one for Christmas: Deck the Halls with Buddy Holly, but I don't have it and have never read it, so if any of my lines resemble anything in that book, it's coincidence.
My re-writing of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" technically is not an example of Mondegreens. A true Mondegreen is a genuinely misheard lyric, such as a misheard line from Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising": "There's a bathroom on the right." Mine are all made up to resemble ways someone might mishear each line of the song.
I've been asked in the past after committing an act of punnery, "Do you stay up all night thinking of those things?" No, not usually, although last night I might've gotten to sleep a bit later than I would've otherwise.
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