Christmas Music
Thesis: Between the late 40s and the mid 60s all the enduring Christmas music was recorded - the stuff we all know, and hear every year with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Not sure why some of these tunes maintain their appeal, except that they make boomers feel young again; “Jingle Bell Rock,” which seems to be based entirely around the concept of jingling as an expression of enthusiasm, could probably be set aside for a few decades. It would be okay if we were not encouraged to rock around the Christmas tree, however that’s done.
But then there’s the good stuff. The crooners of the 50s, the smooth instrumentals of the 60s, the middlebrow culture that put Eugene Ormandy and Leonard Bernstein on Goodyear-sponsored compilations along with Sammy Davis Jr. and Maurice Chevalier. You can’t have Christmas without the warm jolly voice of Burl Ives - produced by Owen Bradley, who produced Patsy Cline and invented that reverb-heavy “countrypolitan” sound. The lush half-in-the-bag cigarette-smoke melancholy of Jackie Gleason’s Christmas records. To modern ears it has a Mad-Men vibe; it’s Dads in hats and thin lapels. To me it’s dad in a Texaco Unitog uniforms with embroidered names over the pocket coming home on Christmas Eve with a Whitman sampler from the drug store. I hear a certain song in a certain style, and it stops me dead. I’m ten.
I have half a gig of Christmas music, most of which is interesting for novelty or historical value. The post-war pre-hippie stuff just shines. Oh, there’s plenty of music before and aft I like; I love Minneapolis’s own Brian Setzer’s big-band rockabilly remakes, for example. But I’ll bet everyone, no matter when you were born, comes back to the same era as the defining period of Christmas music.
So: why do you think that’s so, if you agree? What’s your favorite song? Which tune would you pay never to hear again? I’d go with “Little Drummer Boy” - aside from the obvious fact that no one who’d just given birth would want someone to show up and bang on a percussion instrument, there’s the interminable nature of the song itself; makes “Bolero” sound like “Flight of the Bumblebee.” I can do without Alvin and the Chipmunks song, too. (Fun fact: the man behind the Chipmunks, Ross Bagdasarian, was the pianist-songwriter in the atelier adjacent to Jimmy Stewart’s apartment in “Rear Window.”)
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Jul '10
Re: Christmas Music
Is it even possible to hate Christmas music?
Yes, as evidence I submit the worst.
Nov '10
Re: Christmas Music
Here is my all-time favorite Christmas song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzY-dP4EEg
The best version is actually by Buster Poindexter, but YouTube keeps yanking that one.
In keeping with the Spirit of the Season, here is the most beautiful song ever written about Charity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VwU_oS2ErQ
Reportedly, it was Walt Disney's favorite song.
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
Assuming we are leaving off hymns which are still my favorites, I've always liked "I Saw Three Ships," which is more of an old folk tune, but Bing Crosby has a nice version. And speaking of Der Bingo, top of my list may be bottom of others but I never tire of "Mele Kalikimaka."
On the down side, I submit John Lennon's, "So This is Christmas" which has to be the dour, misanthropic counterpoint to Jimmy's submission above. I also can't stand the Wham song, "Last Christmas." When George Michael is a long, forgotten pensioner, living in a tenement apartment in some seedy part of London, living on the dole -- it will be royalties from this incomprehensibly popular song that will keep him in leather underwear.
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
Lady Kurobara: Here is my all-time favorite Christmas song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtzY-dP4EEg
The best version is actually by Buster Poindexter, but YouTube keeps yanking that one.
In keeping with the Spirit of the Season, here is the most beautiful song ever written about Charity:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VwU_oS2ErQ
Reportedly, it was Walt Disney's favorite song. · Dec 22 at 8:09am
But I really want to know the Christmas tune that Lady most despises...
Aug '10
Re: Christmas Music
I admit to being a Christmas music philistine. I can only enjoy parodic and/or ironic Christmas music.
My favourites:
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
And for you singing group nerds, the best a capella Christmas song ever.
Jul '10
Re: Christmas Music
Got to agree with James on the Chipmunks, but "Little Drummer Boy" is just a victim of over-exposure. In the 60's it was every third song played by Christmas week, along with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," which I very much am weary of by this time.
But Eartha rules.
Aug '10
Re: Christmas Music
My favorite Christmas Carol of all is a real carol:
"Lo How a Rose / A Great and Mighty Wonder"
But it is so hard to chose... too many good 'uns... "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" (Picardy), the Coventry Carol, "What Child is This", "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree", "Sleepers Wake", The Morning Star Chorale (ending Mendelssohn's "There Shall A Star Come Out of Jacob")...
I have a personal vendetta against the notion of "carol" being these obnoxious secular tunes, rather than the (to my ear) much more beautiful sacred songs. Not that this is fair of me -- carols originally started as drinking songs, and were only later sacralized. But I would pay a little money to have "carols" mean real carols -- or at least what I consider "real carols" to be. A little money. But not much.
As for so-called carols I would love to never hear again: "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Santa, Baby".
Ooooh, do I hate "Santa, Baby"! I think this song is musical pornography and therefore a complete perversion of poor, innocent Christmas.
But you will pry "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer" out of my cold, dead fingers. I love that one.
Edited on Dec 22, 2010 at 8:33amJun '10
Re: Christmas Music
I disagree about "best." I don't know if this music qualifies under the rules, but it was an a cappella piece done by Boomers for Boomers in 1982, on a very boomer-friendly stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEtSkJDA61g
Aug '10
Re: Christmas Music
Jimmy Carter: Is it even possible to hate Christmas music?
Yes, as evidence I submit the worst. · Dec 22 at 7:50am
O my dear Lord! I had totally blanked that one out of my memory. It is worse than "Santa Baby".
Shudder.
Re: Christmas Music
Trace Urdan:
On the down side, I submit John Lennon's, "So This is Christmas" which has to be the dour, misanthropic counterpoint to Jimmy's submission above. I also can't stand the Wham song, "Last Christmas." When George Michael is a long, forgotten pensioner, living in a tenement apartment in some seedy part of London, living on the dole -- it will be royalties from this incomprehensibly popular song that will keep him in leather underwear. · Dec 22 at 8:16am
I was going to submit Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time" as the worst ever. So obnox.
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
etoiledunord
I disagree about "best." I don't know if this music qualifies under the rules, but it was an a cappella piece done by Boomers for Boomers in 1982, on a very boomer-friendly stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEtSkJDA61g · Dec 22 at 8:38am
A classic to be sure but I think charmless in the delivery.
Dec '10
Re: Christmas Music
I live in Northern California and I have never had a white Christmas but this song is one of my favorites.
Edited on Dec 22, 2010 at 8:58amAug '10
Re: Christmas Music
You want obnoxious?
I Believe in Father Christmas by Emerson,Lake and Palmer
Listen carefully to the lyrics. It's all about how all this Christmas and Jesus stuff is a giant scam.
It frustrates me when it gets put on Christmas albums by people who have never listened to the lyrics.
Nov '10
Re: Christmas Music
This one is for you, Midge:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_39CvxinT7M
It is also my favorite "traditional" Christmas song.
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
I've a lot about this over the years because I sang in a caroling group performing in Victorian attire at the Ritz Carlton. We sang seven nights a week from Thanksgiving through Christmas Day for four straight years, and yet I rarely tired of the routine. When we came into a room, people treated us like rock stars, but I think it had less to do with us and more to do with their ownprivate memories.
I think people form an emotional link to music that played on the Dumont way back when. It was (and still is) the music evokes memories and sounds of Christmases Past.
For musicians, a hit Christmas song is a retirement plan, which is why just about every band in the free world puts one out. As Jimmy Carter implies, most vary from so-so to dreadful. But once in awhile a new record comes along that captures the magic for a new generation, and when they grow older, they wonder why they're stuck in a time warp.
Jun '10
Re: Christmas Music
Trace Urdan
etoiledunord
I disagree about "best." I don't know if this music qualifies under the rules, but it was an a cappella piece done by Boomers for Boomers in 1982, on a very boomer-friendly stage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEtSkJDA61g · Dec 22 at 8:38am
A classic to be sure but I think charmless in the delivery. · Dec 22 at 8:48am
I give them a pass on charm. That song takes lots of concentration. It's much easier with a dozen voices singing, instead of just three. That's the amazing part.
Jul '10
Re: Christmas Music
I like this.
May '10
Re: Christmas Music
I agree that most of the Christmas music I like is old, but one of my favorites is relatively new: Alan Jackson's Let it be Christmas.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFDwkKKxO2Q
Nov '10
Re: Christmas Music
Trace Urdan
But I really want to know the Christmas tune that Lady most despises...
I am flattered.
First of all, I cannot find it in my heart to condemn "Santa, Baby." Let's face it, plenty of lovers and happy couples will be "makin' whoopee" under the Christmas tree. And the Eartha Kitt version is good enough to redeem the song.
For sheer wretchedness, it is hard to beat "So This is Christmas" and "Wonderful Christmas Time." And it is hard to choose between them. I love the way they "bookend" each other, both being by Beatles.
But for me, hell is a place where this plays in the background eternally:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Como_Christmas_Album
Not really "bad," just...mind-numbing.
Probably, we should ask Mark Steyn, who is a brilliant music critic as well as being a crackerjack conservative columnist.