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A Christmas Carol Playlist 3: Happy Hannukah

Oy To The World - A Klezmer Christmas

This is a real hoot. Klezmer is traditional Jewish music, and in 1998 an American klezmer band called the Klezmonauts decided to have a go at some Christmas songs. Hence the wonderfully tongue-in-cheek album entitled "Oy To The World".

Mostly an instrumental album, "Oy To The World" takes a stack of much-loved Christmas carols and gives them a thoroughly non-Christian treatment with some wild and woolly Yiddish arrangements (love those violins!) And they don't mind chucking in other styles as well. The Ennio Morriconesque rendition of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is but one example.

Here is the playlist. There is one original composition on the album. Can you guess which one it is?

  1. Deck The Halls
  2. We Three Kings Of Orient Are
  3. Joy To The World
  4. Little Drummer Boy
  5. Carol Of The Bells
  6. Santa Gey Gezunderheit
  7. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
  8. Jingle Bells
  9. Good King Wenceslas
  10. Away In The Manger