Monday, December 03, 2007

It took me so long to find out I was wrong--but I found out

As John Lennon says in the song "Day Tripper," "It took me so long to find out, but I found out." Let me hasten to say that I am not--and have never been--into drugs. (After all, tall people are naturally high.) So that is not the reason for my mistaken impression of what I, until today, thought of as "the 'Barumbumbum' song."

In Denmark--at least until I left--I am not aware of a translation of the "Little Drummer Boy" ever being popular. At least, I do not recall ever hearing the song. Since another Christmas song explicitly refers to "the little drummer boy," I actually thought that that was the song with what title.

Imagine my surprise when--after being in the U.S. for twenty-nine years and one and a half weeks--I learned the name of the song. I also learned that the words apparently are "pa rum pum pum pum." This mistake is clearly not of the astronomical magnitude discussed in my previous post "How Could I Have Been So Wrong"--but it still stings!

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