The Little Drummer Boy

Katherine Kennicott Davis wrote the carol in 1941 under the title Carol of the Drum, publishing it as an arrangement of a supposed Czech tune — a common device of the period, and a source never traced. Davis, a Massachusetts composer and teacher, produced some six hundred pieces, most of them for choirs. The Trapp Family Singers recorded it in 1955, and the Harry Simeone Chorale's version of 1958, which introduced the present title, turned it into a fixture of the Christmas season. The whole setting is built on the repeated drum syllables.