Surely, you are familiar with the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody. Well, apparently unrelated to what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 70th birthday year, my church’s youth leader directed a version of something called Bethlehemian Rhapsody, about the birth of Jesus earlier this month.
There are a few examples of these online, always involving puppets. But the version the church kids did was a live-action bit, with The Daughter playing Mary. The adult choir soloists also sang with the kids. They did a boffo job.
The lyrics start:
Is this the real birth?
Is it nativity?
Caught in a census
in the town of his ancestry.
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
He’s just a poor boy foretold by prophecy.
Because the wise men come, wise men go, angels high, shepherds low.
This is how God’s love shows.
It’s a wondrous story to me, to me.
This is not to be confused by a different Bethlehemian Rhapsody, involving David and Goliath, sung by the group ApologetiX, with the lyrics here.
Listen to Bethlehemian Rhapsody (primarily the Jesus version):
here or here or here
here (video and lyrics)
here – lyrics of Jesus version, plus video of both the Jesus and David & Goliath versions
the ApologetiX David and Goliath version
Compare with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen:
here and here, including those lyrics
What are the chances of this? On Christmas Eve, you have a Queen rewrite suitable for the season, and I have a Leonard Cohen rewrite ditto.
“Mysterious ways,” as they say.