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This is portent waiting to happen.īut nothing happens - nothing but an imaginary encounter between a child with a drum and folks too polite to tell him to leave it outside.

This “Drummer Boy” is exalted stuff, pompous, candied, reverential. Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pumīackwards run sentences until reels the mind.įrom the sepulchral voices and the slow, regal beat you know that “The Little Drummer Boy” is no happy “Frosty the Snowman,” no simple classic like “O Holy Night,” nothing poignant like “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” ” See the condemned prisoner walking to the gallows?Ī newborn king to see, pa rum pum pum pum Most recordings begin with rhythm - a slow drum cadence - or low voices in time: “Rum, rum, rum, rum.

Think of the store clerks overdosed on “rum pum pum pums” this Christmas season. Once an hour, say, 12 hours a day: that’s 252 “rum, pum pum pums” over the course of a day. The song as written has six “rum pum pum pums” - and 15 “pa rum pum pum pums.” That’s 21 “rum pum pum pums” per play, more if any of the passages are extended or repeated. It is pumped into stores - sometimes once or twice an hour - from the beginning of November until the last buyer leaves the grocery store on Christmas Day. This, over a funereal cadence, is “The Little Drummer Boy,” a song that may be unavoidable this time of the year. “PA rum pum pum pum/ Rum pum pum pum/ Rum pum pum pum.” Make a snow angel.Īn article from The New York Times, December 24, 2009