December Musical Giftstravaganza Day 9! →[More:]
This is not the Giftstravaganza I had originally planned, because today is Donny Osmond's birthday (be still my beating heart!) but unfortunately I can't find my copy of Donny's "Christmas at Home" CD (YOU CAN STOP THAT CHEERING RIGHT NOW!) so instead I bring you a French Christmas Carol.

Today's song, presented here in various versions, is a song I learned at Junior (elementary) school when I was about 8 or 9 years old.

Unusually for a junior school in the 1960s, we were taught French and so when Christmas was approaching, our teacher, Mrs Pope, decided to teach us a French Christmas carol to sing at the school assembly. I loved the song, and have never forgotten it, to this day.

The song is "Il est né le divin enfant" (He is born, the holy child), lyrics here.

Today I present to you several versions of this beautiful carol.

First, an elaborate arrangement by les Petits Chanteurs à la Croix de Bois Montage.

Next, a more traditional version by the Salt Lake City Choir.

Tino Rossi, the French crooner, provides a spectacularly lounge-lizardy version of this song.

And Demis Roussos, who, inexplicably, became a sex symbol to millions of women in the 1970s, gives the song his own particular warble.

The Chieftains, aided by Kate & Anna McGarrigle, showed how this carol is really just a simple folk song.

But my favourite version of all is by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Her ethereal vocal suits this carol so beautifully.

Here's the (poor quality) video which features a very young Robert Smith.