Boxing Day [choral version]
for choir and piano - from A Bilstonian Christmas
- Duration 2'
Words
this setting is available in various choral scorings: SATB, or SSA, or SABar, or TBarB, accompanied by piano - and also as a solo song (or a piece for unison voices)
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Text
It was impossible to say who threw the first punch
but the first one to land was the one about how Christmas lunch
was 'good' but the sprouts were 'a little undercooked',
an observation greeted by return with a firm left hook
in the form of a comment about the gift of yet more socks,
had she not noticed his drawer of overstocks
and also, what was it with Christmas and cotton briefs
and novelty reindeer handkerchiefs?
Having now both warmed up, further punches were traded -
a jab about her father-in-law, the borderline racist,
how she'd looked on in horror as the bread sauce gathered in his beard
and that she had always thought it a little bit 'weird'
[words © Brian Bilston - used by permission - music © Paul Ayres]
that his family would wait until the late afternoon
before any presents got opened, and soon
an uppercut was delivered back
as to how the dishwasher had been inexpertly stacked
and that twice as much might have fitted
if his involvement in the loading had been permitted
and so it went on, the trading of blows back and forth,
each slight, dig and jibe set on its course -
the lunge, the parry, the block, and the swipe -
a few missing their mark, some leaving their stripe.
That's just how it was - for them, every day was Boxing Day
and they wouldn't have it any other way.