Saturday, March 20, 2010

Just In Jest - Carol: O Come Ye Old Faithful!

The image shows the back cover of an Extended Play (45rpm) vinyl produced in the 60s. It has a Christmas theme but what is interesting are titles of the songs. Mary's Boy Child is obviously happy with the celebration and becomes, Merry Little Boy Child.

It is correct that in speech the final /t/ consonant is not pronounced in the word "silent" before a word like "night". So Silent Night becomes Silend Night. Clever. And since the old faithfuls have come forward to sing, O Come All Ye Faithful, the carol has been changed to O'come Ye Old Faithful. Which is appropriate.

But typographical errors on record sleeves are common with recording companies managed by Asians, especially when song titles are in English. This one is no exception.

But ours is a music blog and to be fair, the band plays well and is comparable to other groups in similar genre. In fact, The Silverstones (image) are great!

You can listen to them on You Tube and the boys are a picture of youth and vitality. They look resplendent in their brown suits don't they? Comment?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckDMU-86LQg&feature=related


Image/original article: Andy Lim Collection.

2 comments:

Victor said...

Even today, it is common to find spelling errors in English song titles, especially for CDs of questionable origin.

I have in front of me now a CD with "Hermen's Hermits" singing "No Mike Today". (Hmm... I wonder if they had used a loud hailer instead.)

And then there's Paper Love singing "The Nigh Chicago Doed".

I won't tell you where I bought the CD though.

ANDY: Pop Music Not Pills. © said...

Oh Victor, Thank you for the comment. "No Mike Today", that's funny!