Doctor Who: Shepherd's Bell Carol
14 May 2024 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
promethia_tenkOh Doctor Who is back, baby.
So, obviously the meatiest part of the two episodes that dropped this weekend is the sequence where the Maestro has Ruby strung up in the recording hall . . .
I had to transcribe it for science:
Doctor: Then fight me! Leave her alone!
Maestro: But she's the only human left with music in her heart! Playing lovesick songs for heartbroken lesbians. And that just makes me hungry for all those delicious songs.
Ruby: Let. Me. Go.
Maestro: That's right, pretty girl! Sing!
Doctor: Maestro, I am asking you, just . .
[Ruby starts singing, eerily]
Doctor: What? (the Doctor looks genuinely confused by her at this point, which I find interesting)
Maestro: That's wrong.
Doctor: What do you mean?
Maestro: There's a hidden song deep inside her soul. What is it?
[the subtitles identify the song as 'Shepherd's Bell Carol']
Maestro: What?
Doctor: Ruby!
Maestro: What is this?
Doctor: Christmas. The music that was playing the night she was born.
Maestro: How could a song have so much power? And power like him?
Doctor: Like who?
Maestro: The oldest one. On the night of her brith, he can't have been there. What for? What for? What for?
Doctor: Who was there?
Maestro: Enough [waves hand]
[Ruby falls and the Doctor catches her. It's ok, it's ok, etc., etc.]
Ruby: What happened?
Maestro: This creature is very wrong.
Lot to unpack there, but the thing I noticed is that when Carol of the Bells starts playing, the lyrics are not Carol of the Bells. Nor are they the original Ukrainian story about a swallow.
So apparently it's this version. And I cannot for the life of me find the lyrics somewhere online. Listening with my good headphones on, my best guess is that it's a europeanization of the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus. It's explicitly a story: 'Come you draw near, listen, I'll tell.' And there's a lone shepherd boy out in the cold and snow on Christmas night 'out on the fell' with the sheep in the fold, which does fit nicely with the imagery of the Doctor standing out in the snow and now Ruby's mother appearing to turn to him. The shepherd boy of course connects to Heaven Sent if we want to go ascribing meaning to lyric choices. I can't hear a word of the middle parts, which is honestly kind of apropos given what we don't know about Ruby's origin. And it ends with 'left him alone' (presumably the angels) and the shepherd left in the snow.
Ruby has a hidden song in her soul and you literally can't google the lyrics. Epic if intentional.
So, obviously the meatiest part of the two episodes that dropped this weekend is the sequence where the Maestro has Ruby strung up in the recording hall . . .
I had to transcribe it for science:
Doctor: Then fight me! Leave her alone!
Maestro: But she's the only human left with music in her heart! Playing lovesick songs for heartbroken lesbians. And that just makes me hungry for all those delicious songs.
Ruby: Let. Me. Go.
Maestro: That's right, pretty girl! Sing!
Doctor: Maestro, I am asking you, just . .
[Ruby starts singing, eerily]
Doctor: What? (the Doctor looks genuinely confused by her at this point, which I find interesting)
Maestro: That's wrong.
Doctor: What do you mean?
Maestro: There's a hidden song deep inside her soul. What is it?
[the subtitles identify the song as 'Shepherd's Bell Carol']
Maestro: What?
Doctor: Ruby!
Maestro: What is this?
Doctor: Christmas. The music that was playing the night she was born.
Maestro: How could a song have so much power? And power like him?
Doctor: Like who?
Maestro: The oldest one. On the night of her brith, he can't have been there. What for? What for? What for?
Doctor: Who was there?
Maestro: Enough [waves hand]
[Ruby falls and the Doctor catches her. It's ok, it's ok, etc., etc.]
Ruby: What happened?
Maestro: This creature is very wrong.
Lot to unpack there, but the thing I noticed is that when Carol of the Bells starts playing, the lyrics are not Carol of the Bells. Nor are they the original Ukrainian story about a swallow.
So apparently it's this version. And I cannot for the life of me find the lyrics somewhere online. Listening with my good headphones on, my best guess is that it's a europeanization of the story of the angels appearing to the shepherds to announce the birth of Jesus. It's explicitly a story: 'Come you draw near, listen, I'll tell.' And there's a lone shepherd boy out in the cold and snow on Christmas night 'out on the fell' with the sheep in the fold, which does fit nicely with the imagery of the Doctor standing out in the snow and now Ruby's mother appearing to turn to him. The shepherd boy of course connects to Heaven Sent if we want to go ascribing meaning to lyric choices. I can't hear a word of the middle parts, which is honestly kind of apropos given what we don't know about Ruby's origin. And it ends with 'left him alone' (presumably the angels) and the shepherd left in the snow.
Ruby has a hidden song in her soul and you literally can't google the lyrics. Epic if intentional.
