This new painting is inspired by the Christmas Carol with the same name, Little Drummer Boy.

The song written by an American composer Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941 is based on a traditional Czech carol and was first recorded by the Austrian Trapp Family singers. It tells the story of a poor boy who plays his drum for baby Jesus because he has no other gift to give.

I love this song because it reflects how ideas travel the world: an american classical composer writes a song based on a czech carol which is made popular by the famous austrian Trapp family and consequently enters popular culture, there is even an african version to it. The story of the boy is somewhat similar to a 12th-century medieval legend retold by Anatole France as Le Jongleur de Notre Dame and made into an opera by composer Jules Massenet in 1902.

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