2025, holidays, Music, Uncategorized

St. Stephen’s Day Earworms

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Happy Boxing Day, Baboons! Today is also St Stephen’s Day. I have been thinking all week of this song from the Chieftains and Elvis Costello. We appreciated Boxing Day as a great day off when we lived in Winnipeg.

It has had good company with any number of earworms that have plagued me for a while.

O Canada seems to always be playing in my mind. I also have been hearing Ode to Joy and the hymn Earth and All Stars which has pretty wild lyrics and which I haven’t heard in church for a couple of years. I seem to hear these songs when I wake up in the middle of the night.

For some really strange reason I woke up earlier this week with this playing in my head:

I have no idea where this came from. Why on earth would I dredge this from my memory the week of Christmas?

How do you think we ought to celebrate Boxing Day as a holiday? Any earworms lately? What is your favorite production of Guys and Dolls?

25 thoughts on “St. Stephen’s Day Earworms”

    1. The day after Christmas celebrated traditionally in England and Canada as the day you box up things to give to the poor. In more modern times it is just a day off to recover from Christmas.

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    2. I wondered what your understanding was given that the internet provided a few different definitions: gratitude day, day after Christmas, give to the poor, go shopping. It did not clarify anything! And it has always been vague to me.

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  2. We still have two more holiday celebrations so don’t get to recover until Sunday!

    And I’ve never cottoned (where does this phrase come from?) to Guys & Dolls so no favorite for me….

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    2. Here’s an explanation of “cottoned”. Unfortunately, the site is so overloaded with ads it’s annoying:
      https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/cotton-on.html

      I always thought of Boxing Day as when you regift all your lamest presents to the servants.

      The only version of Guys and Dolls is the one Robin and I costumed for our daughter’s high school production. In accord with the director’s vision, we made suits for the primary males out of garish fabrics— stripes and polka dots —a la the costumes in the Warren Beatty Dick Tracy movie.

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    3. Our Christmas holiday celebrations are done now, but we experienced several that were just wonderful. On to New Years when we attend Chanhassen Dinner Theater’s White Christmas with a friend and her handicapped daughter. I am finding that husband needs more and more handicap accessible facilities. CDT has close parking and a short walk. So it is ideal from the accessibility standpoint. I am attending several other theater productions, but husband would need a wheelchair because walking is now quite laborious for him, and he won’t do a wheelchair. Parking, even handicapped parking, and theaters are a brisk and distant walk that I am more aware of now.

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  3. No good suggestions for how to celebrate Boxing Day. A day off from spending money might be a good idea for most people. I like the original idea of boxing up things for the poor. Or maybe we should only be able to watching actual boxing matches on TV, movies, theater, online media. Perhaps if we get sick to death of watching people beat each other up for sport, we’ll stop trying to do it for real with guns and bombs.

    The movie version of “Guys & Dolls” is decent. A good cast, well chosen. But we saw the national Broadway touring cast in Chicago years ago (1990s) and loved it. I think being in the same room with all the energy projected from the stage is invigorating, and the immediacy of the theater allows one to feel like their living it in real time, albeit from a safe distance.

    Chris in Owatonna

    PS– Oh, and Happy Kwanzaa too. Not that I celebrate it, much like I don’t celebrate Hanukkah, but for those who do, enjoy your traditions.

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  4. I have been diligent about boxing up things to give away, so I plan to have coffee at the Blue Heron with a friend, and otherwise relax and do anything I want.
    I have, however, mentally planned out how to use the next “week off” before UU starts up again on Jan. 4.

    Oh my, earworms. This week I’ve hosted:
    – “Solstice Song” which our choir performed in mid-Dec.
    – an unnamed song from the men’s quartet Christmas concert, plus And So It Goes, another one they sing
    – English hymn “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, heard when watching The Crown last winter. The original tune is “Thaxted”, from Holst’s “The Planets: Jupiter”.
    (You can find it on youtube if you’d like your own earworm.)

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Lately my earworms have been Christmas Carols, which is not hard to understand at all given the season. Specifically, I get stuck on Miss Piggy singing them with John Denver and the Muppets. That old, old album makes me laugh. Miss Piggy inserts side comments. She misunderstands “Figgy Pudding” as Piggy pudding. Fellow choir members clear it up, then clarify “with bacon.” I always did love the Muppet Show. But getting ear worms which are that specific mystifies me.

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  6. might take on Boxing Day is that after Christmas the house is kind of left with piles of stuff everywhere and Boxing Day is to get everything boxed up and tucked away after the madness of the holiday celebration. I love guys and dolls and what’s the one about I got a horse named something. That’s the one that popped into my mind first my son did guys and dolls and got to play the role of the guy that’s saying that song and I was elated that may have been the best Marlon Brando role ever.

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  7. I think the Guthrie staging was pretty good both in 2019 and also a much earlier production (wasn’t Jerry Stiller in one?). I love the energy of live staging. Marlon Brando was not a great singer and spoils the movie’s musical presentation. Poor casting re choice of major singer role (same for Paint Your Wagon movie).

    Earworms yes Christmas Carols but hopefully over soon.
    By the way, those who successfully use WordPress- how do you like someone else’s post? I never have been successful doing that despite being able to post myself.

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    1. WP is a moody beast! Some days it will let me like the main blog only, and other days it’ll let me like comments as well. Come to think of it, it’s not necessarily a day thing, it can change from one moment to the next. As of this moment it will not let me like individual comments, but allowed me to like Renee’s main blog. Go figure!

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      1. This doesn’t really reference Boxing Day, but some of the lyrics:
        …Go down into the cellar, and see what you can find
        If the barrels are not empty
        We hope you will be kind
        We hope you will be kind
        With your apple and strawber..
        For we’ll come no more a ‘soalin this time next year

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  9. Love the Peter, Paul & Mary album! “Children Go Where I Send Thee” from that album is one of my current earworms. We watched “Love Actually” last week, so much of that soundtrack is also in my in my head, especially “Turn Me On” (Norah Jones).

    I observed Boxing Day by working. I usually don’t take the 26th off unless I have a huge amount of PTO to use. It’s a quiet day and I can catch up on things.

    I’m rarely able to like comments on WP, but the platform has been generous this week and has been allowing me to like everything.

    My favorite (and only) production of Guys and Dolls was our high school production (Robbinsdale High School, mid-70s). I had too much stage fright to be in drama, but many of my friends were theater geeks and I helped out behind the scenes. We had a very talented and dedicated team of teachers/coaches and the productions were excellent; it was amazing to see what a bunch of high-school kids could do.

    Much as I loved the high school production, I’ve never been curious enough to look up the film or other stage versions. Some of the songs are good, though.

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