Last night during dinner we listened to Celtic Christmas, one of our Pandora stations. What Child is This? was one of the tunes. It's also known as Greensleeves, same tune, different words. I commented, "I've always loved that song. I wonder who composed it?"
Off went Trish to get her cell phone. She googled it. We were both amazed when we discovered who allegedly wrote the tune: King Henry VIII (for the Roman numeral challenged, VIII = 8). I couldn't believe it. That randy, ruthless, and thoroughly despicable despot sat his fat ass down and composed beautiful music?* Nah. No way!
Turns out I was right. It's just a myth and now it's busted. It was actually composed several years after the King went to hell, mourned by few, if any. Four composers attempted to take credit for the composition in 1580, the most persistent of which was Richard Jones. I'm gonna go with Mr Jones. It's logical, given the family name; Richard Jones was surely an ancestor of It's Not Unusual Jones,
Some of the songs played on Celtic Christmas were in Gaelic. Gaelic is pleasing to the ear but written Gaelic has an uncanny similarity to alphabet soup. Take a spoonful of soup, jot down the letters in that spoonful in any order you please. Now select a word at random, one that has no connection whatsoever with how those letters are pronounced in any known language. Take more spoonfuls, write a complete sentence. What the hell, go to Costco, buy a pallet of the stuff, write an entire dictionary!
Try this Gaelic sentence on for size: Saolaítear na daoine uile saor agus comhionann ina ndínit agus ina gcearta. Got it figured out? Need a little more time, say a decade or two? Give it up, not gonna happen. Here's the translation: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Spoken French is also melodic and pleasing, but has weird pronunciation. Try to pronounce the words on a French restaurant menu and you'll wish you'd stayed home and opened a can of beans. Still, you can guess the meaning of many French words because they're similar to English words. Not so with Gaelic. Pass the soup.
*Actually, Horny Hank was said to be an accomplished musician, played the lute and organ, maybe wrote a few tunes as well.
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