I love beer. My friends and I get together every other Monday at a pub called Rare Olde Times to talk about our lives and the directions they are heading in, and that is always accompanied by a Smithwicks or two. I love fall and winter because Sam Adams releases their seasonal brews, and nothing beats drinking an Old Fezziwig while watching a Muppet Christmas Carol. I love bitter beer and I love coffee beer. I love pretty much anything but light beer.
Because light beer pretty much sucks.
I also love choral Christmas music. Few things are more satisfying than popping in a CD of four-part carols and trying to hear and sing along with the bass part. Gimme that.
The reason I mention both of these loves is that in my mind they intersect in a very wonderful place. I find many of the carols that I listen to have a very lively rhythm to them - and that is to be expected as so many of them are proclaiming good news or chronicling stories of Christmas feasts enjoyed in the past. I find myself swinging my arm while I am driving - because in my mind that is not only enjoyable but required.
And I realized last year that my incessant arm swinging is with good reason - these are pubs tunes. Every time I hear them I imagine myself sitting in a pub somewhere in Surrey, England singing along and swinging my mug in the air. So when I say these are some of favorite carols, it is solely based on their "beer-swingability".
Now grab a mug, click the link and swing away as each song beckons you do so in a way only the Robert Shaw arrangements can do. What else are you doin' right now?
Pub Tunes
3. Wassail Song
5. Fum Fum Fum
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