SIX THINGS ABOUT HOLIDAY MUSIC THAT I VERY STRONGLY BELIEVE:
1. While people are free to record their own renditions of any traditional holiday song in the public domain, if they want to change the lyrics for commercial purposes, they should have to pay a massive, exorbitant royalty to do so. If some jackass wants to foist upon the world a line like Deck the halls with Walgreen’s Savings!, it’s only fair that he pay through his very shiny nose for the privilege. Proceeds from the royalties would go to various charities. Obvious exception to the rule: “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells,” because that is a classic.
2. The few dozen holiday pop songs that are now part of the contemporary canon should NOT be covered by other pop artists for a certain number of years following their original release date. Like maybe even fifty years. No, really, I feel this rule has become necessary due to the many recent terrible versions of Wham’s “Last Christmas” swirling around the airwaves, like a crap blizzard that grows thicker every year.
Look, I don’t even like “Last Christmas” that much, but I just think Taylor Swift and Hillary Duff and Coldplay and all the other posers need to back the hell off and let George and Andrew have their hammy synthesizer pop-ballad glory every holiday season until around Christmas 2035, when middle-aged Miley Cyrus can record it as a duet with the cryogenically preserved head of Bret Michaels. Until then, she and everyone else ought to try writing their own original songs instead of cashing in on someone else’s successful bid for holiday music immortality. Because one of the things that I love about modern Christmas music is that it’s such a crazy collage of decades, with Bing Crosby and The Ronettes and the Carpenters and Jose Feliciano and The Waitresses all captured in little retro snowglobes of their eras. Remaking those songs to sound more up-t0-date and/or fit some acceptably hipster aesthetic seems control-freakish and sad, like those color-coordinated Christmas trees that you see in magazines. IT IS NOT RIGHT.
3. I enjoy “The Little Drummer Boy” enough that for most of the song I am able to suspend whatever general skepticism I may have about the existence of percussion instruments and drum majors in the Biblical era. I’m totally with the Little Drummer Boy all the way up to the line “the ox and lamb kept time,” and then the bubble totally bursts. The ox and lamb kept time? Are you kidding, song? Am I really expected to suddenly just imagine livestock jiving along in some crazy bullshit Max Fleischer cartoon scene right then and there? Seriously, it ruins everything until the next time I hear the song.
4. “Let it Snow” is still pretty demented, but I love when Ella Fitzgerald sings it.
5. “The Christmas Song” still makes me feel dead inside, but I tolerate it in order to be part of society.
6. The Paul McCartney Christmas song is way more fun than the John Lennon Christmas song. This is partly Chris’s doing, because he pointed out that “(Simply Having) A Wonderful Christmastime” sounds for all the world like Paul’s in his living room on Christmas morning trying out wacky chords on the new synthesizer that he just unwrapped. Barrp-barrp-barrp-barrp BOINGG! Barrp-barrp-barrp-barrp BOINGGGG! “Brilliant keyboard, Linda!” Not to knock John and Yoko and the whole “war is over if you want it” thing, but sometimes what you want is to just sit around in your pajamas for awhile.
Am I the only one who thinks this much about Christmas music?
OH no, believe me. Let’s see, some of my Christmas musical memories (which I’ve since found on CD!): Mitch Miller, The Kingston Trio (their Christmas album is my all time favorite), The Chipmunks Christmas and then the classical stuff. My father was an organist and I grew up singing in choirs and dancing around our Akron, Ohio living room to the hi-fi: movie and Broadway musicals, the Beatles with my babysitter, oh so many things. [Of course, I also wanted my parents to fly me to Austria so I could be Angela Cartwright in THE SOUND OF MUSIC.] The Waitresses tune is one of my favorite “more recent” classics. And, OMG, how can I forget? John Denver’s ROCKY MOUNTAIN CHRISTMAS? All of that older stuff, however, makes me very sad and nostalgic so I try to stick with boppier stuff these days.
And a very, merry to you! Did you get a lot of snow up there?
And we just can’t forget Bing Crosby and David Bowie singing “The Little Drummer Boy” on a Christmas special in the late 70s. Here’s a clip:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xsisd_bing-crosby-david-bowie-duet_music
And this version, of Kate Bush doing “December Will Be Magic Again,” is way over the top (but a great song).
Here’s clip, sorry! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfD7FzcjVyQ
You’re not. I mean, I have ennui about “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” because…as a child, I took it to heart, and I REALLY REALLY WANTED war to be over. And…not so much. So it’s just a song of lies. Lies, and feeling guilty, because…”what have you done?” Well, damn, John, we can’t ALL stage bed-ins every year.
Ido think about christmas music this much. Couldn’t agree more about point 1. Even though I havnt heard a new Christmas song that I’ve liked that has come out in the last 4 decades. Including Whams overplayed trashy sob pop. (that’s what hipsters call emo) I do enjoy little drummer boy, and will have to pay attention to the lyrics closer now that sounds fluckin flunny. But it’s a great visual image. I actually don’t like Christmas music the second least as far as genres of music goes. I’d go as far as to say I’d hate christmas music but it’susic and I love music…so I won’t. Sleet this is getting more annoying, than “Ho, Ho, Hoing” B.I.G unreleased Christmas song, writing from my iPhone by the second. I’ll end with this point I strongly feel. Christmas music should not be played on FM stations until 2 weeks prior to the 25. Should not be played in public shopping or eating or anything else blasted for all the flock to hear…um for 2 weeks prior to the 25. Yes people we all know it’s a tradition to stand in the freezing cold for hours on Black Friday for that special something for that special someone. But for Christs sake don’t PLAY Christmas music during it, I don’t start playing Valintines music the next day after new years eve just because it’s the next holiday I care So SO much about. So SO don’t play it and force it down the throats of already amped up shoppers. Oh and don’t continue to play Christmas music afterwards. This includes in your small room, alone, with earphones, at your mothers house…it is just pathetic.
No, no, you’re not over thinking it. I nearly lost it at the grocery store because of the horrible pop Christmas music that was (loudly) playing. I can’t think about which bunch of chard I want when Gloria Estefan is singing “Let it snoo-oh-oh-ooow, let it snooo-ooooh-oow!” over some horrible synthesized keyboard crappity crap. Worse still is that I had to express my feelings about this out loud to my husband (and I have to shout over the music to do so) and I end up looking like a crazy ham-stealing looney. Augh!
Speaking of horrible songs, it was pointed out to me how much the lyrics of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” sounds like a song about date rape. After I looked them up…yeah, it kinda does.
As an almost M.Div., I can assure you that they definitely had percussion instruments in Biblical times. (In Exodus, Miriam leads song with a tambourine in her hand . . . etc.) Kids who were allowed to do nothing but take music lessons all day instead of working in the fields, however, less likely. May I suggest as an alternative “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Christina Rossetti?
You’re not. I mean, I have ennui about “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” because…as a child, I took it to heart, and I REALLY REALLY WANTED war to be over. And…not so much. So it’s just a song of lies. Lies, and feeling guilty, because…”what have you done?” Well, damn, John, we can’t ALL stage bed-ins every year.