April Fools Day: Why, Wherefore, and Music Playlist (2019.04.01)

All Fools Day (aka April 1^st) has a long history though with elusive origins.  Any road, if you fancy a bit of goofiness, then we have a playlist for you on a particularly foolish Crosscurrents, 04/01 at 8 am.

Our Fools Day music playlist will include, among others:  Arrogant Worms, The Beat Farmers, Bob Newhart, Bobby Bare, Brian Regan, CW Mcall, Chas and Dae, Cheech and Chong, Ellen DeGeneres, The Firesign Threatre, George Carlin, Jerry Reed, Jim Gaffigan, Lily Tomlin, Monty Python, Paula Poundstone Peter Sellers, Randy Newman, Roger Miller, Shel Silverstein, Spike Jones, Stan Freberg, Steve Martin, Wolfman Jack, and…. The Wurzels.

One common story dates to the custom to 1564, when France officially reformed its calendar to the contemporary Gregorian type, and thereby altered the celebration of the New Year from the last week of March to 1 January.

In this version of actions, those who sustained the celebration to the end of New Year’s Week on 1 April were ridiculed as fools.

In early Rome, for example, the Hilaria festival celebrated the revival of a demigod with the putting on of disguises; and the medieval Feast of Fools, in which a Lord of Misrule was elected to parody Christian ceremonies, suffered centuries of church censorship.

There is also a British myth, which places the festival’s source in the Nottinghamshire town of Gotham. The story is that in the 13th century, the town’s inhabitants heard that King John could claim any road on which he stepped as his property and so they accordingly declined the monarch’s admission.   When his soldiers arrived to power their way in, the people of Gotham pretended to be lunatics, and King John determined that their madness preordained that the penalty that would have otherwise been meted out would be unfitting.  According to this story, April Fool’s Day celebrates their slyness.

It is also a mysterious as to why the custom expires at noon.  However, it may be that the source of Britain’s deadline might be the 17th century’s well-named Shig-Shag day, when celebrants put oak sprigs in their hats to show loyalty to the monarchy, in reference to Charles II’s hiding in an oak tree.   Those who failed to honor the custom could only be derided until midday.