“The Little Drummer Boy” might make the list of least favorite Christmas songs for many, according to a quick Google search, but it brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.
Recently, I stumbled on a version of the song by the popular four-time Grammy-winning Christian pop band for King + Country. I had no expectations watching the video. A colleague sent it to me, suggesting that I watch it and write about it.
I was stunned by this extraordinary video, like a kid again, listening to this powerful fable about the birth of Jesus Christ as if for the first time.
In “The Little Drummer Boy,” kings and wise men are bringing the baby Jesus silver and gold. They’re bringing him expensive and rare things like myrrh.
But the little drummer boy has none of that to give.
The only thing he has to give is his humble ability to play a drum. And so, he timidly asks baby Jesus, “Shall I play for you?”
Then the baby smiles at him, a simple sign of approval, universal in any language.
There’s something about the message of the story that has always captured an important truth. It’s not our wealth that’s our true treasure on this earth. It’s not the rarest of rare gemstones that we can buy.
No. What’s special about each of us is whatever God, the creator, gave us to bring into the world. For some it’s music, for others it’s art, or it’s cooking, or it’s writing. It doesn’t matter what the gift is. You share it with God by sharing it with the world, however humble it might be.
In an article about this video, Joel and Luke Smallbone talk about how important making this music video was to them and why. But it didn’t start out that way. They were just singing through some Christmas songs, looking for numbers to use in a show.
They’d never heard “The Little Drummer Boy” before. But when the words began to register, when the meaning became clear, a lightbulb clicked on in their “little boy brains,” as they like to describe it.
They were a drum-forward Christian pop band. And here was this song, with a message about little drummer boys. It was perfect for them.
It was a calling from God, one they had to answer.
Bighorn Mountains
To make the video, they knew they needed a special setting, and that setting was Wyoming.
In fact, it’s recognizable to anyone who has lived in Wyoming for any length of time. It’s the Bighorn Mountains and it’s Lake De Smet.
All the majesty and the drama that the scenery brings is almost 100% Wyoming. Sure, portions of the video were filmed in Utah on the set of “The Chosen,” and there’s a segment in a band member’s backyard in Nashville, where the Australian brothers now live.
But most of the time, the scenery that is the star of this music video, which attracted 3 million views in its first year, is Wyoming.
The duo doesn’t mention too much about Wyoming in the articles written about the song.
But it is mentioned in the video they made about making “The Little Drummer Boy.”
“God’s great earth right here,” Joel Smallbone declares on the video, sweeping his arms out to take in the countryside. The camera follows that sweep to capture the majesty that is the Bighorns.
The camera then settles on what Joel calls a “pathway back into time,” atop the Wyoming world.
The Little Drummer Boy music video features Luke Smallbone’s son, Phoenix, in the role of the Little Drummer Boy. Phoenix practiced for weeks, Luke says on the video, and he had to audition for the little drummer boy role like all of the other hopefuls.
The approach paid off, as Phoenix is clearly taking his starring role in the video seriously, and he does a remarkable job for one so young.
The video has continued to attract views since it was released, with more than 14 million so far, and counting.
Big Wyoming Fans
It’s clear that the Smallbones are big fans of what they saw in Wyoming. And with good reason. The Bighorns actually have a lot to offer to residents and to visitors, aside from the beauty they contributed to make the Little Drummer Boy music video so extraordinary.
Johnson County tourism has been working extra hard lately to get the word out to people about that, to attract more tourism to its towns. It can’t hurt their effort that the so recognizable vista they are touting, which, like Jackson Hole, has wildlife aplenty as well as fun snowboarding, snowmobiling, and skiing, has now been seen by millions.
This year, the band made their version of the Little Drummer Boy song a central feature of their dive into a cinematic concert experience, with a movie they called “A Drummer Boy Christmas LIVE,” which grossed $3.1 million for its debut weekend. The show is like a Christian rock Christmas concert, with a bit of inspiration and love thrown in for good measure. It features a cameo with Dolly Parton, among others.
The music video they made in Wyoming wasn’t part of this particular movie, which showed in several Wyoming theaters, including Cheyenne’s. But the Bighorns set video is still on YouTube as an ad that leads back to a page about for King + Country.
Nobody knows if the Smallbones will be back to make more beautiful music videos with Wyoming as a backdrop. But it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who lives in the Bighorns area if they did.
The Bighorns, just as the Little Drummer boy video shows, are amazing and beautiful. They belong on anyone’s bucket list, whether that’s for the vacation of a lifetime, or a stirring, tear-inducing rendition of “The Little Drummer Boy.”
Play on, Smallbone boys. Play on. We’re all smiling here in Wyoming.
Contact Renee Jean at renee@cowboystatedaily.com
Grammy Award-winning Christian rock duo for King + Country filmed the music video for its emotional version of "The Little Drummer Boy" in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Grammy Award-winning Christian rock duo for King + Country filmed the music video for its emotional version of "The Little Drummer Boy" in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. (Cowboy State Daily Staff) 
Grammy Award-winning Christian rock duo for King + Country filmed the music video for its emotional version of "The Little Drummer Boy" in Wyoming's Bighorn Mountains. (Cowboy State Daily Staff)
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
