Review

November, 11th 2016

If there are any super-hit among Christmas carols on Earth than this song may be considered in the list as #1. No matter who’s singing a song, it is always remarkable and recognizable from the very beginning. You may not know the entire lyrics (and we bet a less amount of people actually do), words ‘It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’ that are the chorus, are known peremptorily. The second song after this one – Joy to the World – you also know as the second biggest hit of the Christmas time. Only they two can be played on the Eve and the New Year. Okay, for the sake of truth, we must name yet another inalienable song from this best holiday in the year – Carol of the Bells, which was written by the Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych. It is also known as ‘Ukrainian Bell Carol.’ We want to tell you a little more about the New Year as the phenomenon. The Carol of the Bells originally had words saying about the swallow’s returning to the lands. It meant hundreds and thousands of years ago that the spring has arrived onto land with this birdie. As you know, the original story of the New Year was entirely different than Christians made it – heathens celebrated the spring’s arrival when the birds of passage returned to the homeland to spend a spring, summer and a part of autumn in the native lands. Their arrival and rising in temperature were the best indicators of the arrival of the new life, new soul and new year. Later, Christians shifted the New Year’s arrival in order to suppress the heathen’s festivals to re-arrange the world to their beliefs. It succeeded and currently a few people know the origins. What Mr. Leontovych did is he took a folk song and arranged it to sound as the Carol of the Bells sounds today. Though you must also know that the original language of it was Ukrainian and only somewhere in 1970-ies the American people heard as it was sung by immigrants from Ukraine on a Christmas time and they liked it so much so did the English arrangement, which is currently known to the entire world.
So, we now know that there are three main Christmas songs/carols – ‘It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,’ ‘Joy to the World,’ and ‘Carol of the Bells’ (the latter isn’t included in the current soundtrack though heard in the trailer). As for the first one, the emphasis is done on the sensations that people usually have on Christmas – the children play around the city on their jingle bells (well, maybe not today, but they definitely used to do it in the past); your friends greeting you at the streets, wishing the best mood; the parties are organized in the world and you can join as many of them as you want as not only your friends organize them all around, but also organizations in the work premises for their staff, the clubs, restaurants, and bars as well as various shopping centers and any other imaginable hosts; there’ll be much kissing under the mistletoes in the world, which allows bringing people together; and, finally, hearts will be wrapped-up in warmth and glowing with smiles and wishing-wells. Reference: More about "Schedryk" song in English and Ukrainian