For some reason, just like the Hallmark cable channels, the satellite radio monopoly Sirius-XM has gone nuts this pre-Christmas season. I count six channels devoted to Christmas music, and I’m sure there are some other buried in there. There are two traditional Christmas music stations that appear to be playing the same songs and recordings; a Country Christmas channel, which means really bad compositions like “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy,” a poor rip-off of the slightly less revolting, “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and better songs and carols sung with a twang; a Gospel Christmas channel, and “Nativity,” which includes only carols and songs referencing Jesus, and “Holly,” which avoid religious references completely and is required listening if you want to know how few modern Christmas ballads deserve annual airing. I could two: “Last Christmas,” and Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You,” neither of which can be sung around a piano anywhere but backstage at the Grammys.
I been forcing myself to listen to all of it for days, and have reached some rueful conclusions:
- In their rush to avoid referring to Jesus, the programmers over-play the established Winter Solstice canon to the point of madness. We’re talking “Snowfall,” “Winter Wonderland,” “I’ve Got Your Love To Keep Me Warm,” “Sleighride,” “It’s a Marshmallow World,” “Let It Snow,” “Frosty the Snowman,’ and of course, “Baby It’s Cold Outside” by every possible artist, over and over. None of these songs are about Christmas, but if you’re a Druid, I suppose they are appropriate and festive.
At least some versions have lyric changes made to refer to Christmas. Sometimes Frosty says, instead of “I’ll be back again some day!” that he’ll be back on Christmas day. (Is Frosty some kind of a weird Christ figure?). In Winter Wonderland, Farmer Brown’s birthday party is sometimes turned into a Christmas party.
- Boy, the ex-Beatles’ attempts at Christmas songs are awful, especially John Lennon’s, with its depressive message, and the lame and gloomy couplet,
And so Merry Christmas, and a happy new year
Let’s make it a good one, without any fear.
- There hasn’t been a decent Christmas standard entering the canon since 1963’s “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, which I wrote about last year.
It is also the last popular Christmas song to be written with a religious theme. Think about that, and what it says about the status of religion in U.S. culture.
- I know this is a personal preference, but when Bing Crosby’s recordings come on, his warm, smooth, impeccably-crafted delivery just blows everyone else out of the metaphorical water. Yes, even Old Blue Eyes.
Christmas keeps Bing’s legacy alive, though in an unfairly narrow context. We will never hear a voice like that again, I fear.
- Having been forced to listen to “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” until it kept me awake at night, I have concluded that the suddenly au courant criticism of the song—bullying, you know—is baloney. It teaches the valuable lesson that being a target and a victim need not be permanent, and that if one has character and develops skills, there will be opportunities to prove one’s critics wrong.
I think of Rudolph as a reindeer version of Desmond Doss.
At the risk of being repetitive (I’ve know I mentioned many of these before), here are some Christmas song lyrics that could be, and in some cases, should be, fixed.
- What’s a drummer doing by the manger, with a baby sleeping? This has bothered me since the first time I heard “The Little Drummer Boy.”
- Speaking of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”: I get the wind talking to the lamb, and I’ll even accept the lamb talking to the shepherd boy, but I’ve never understood how the boy had a chance to meet the mighty king, much less tell him to bring the child “silver and gold.”
- Listen to Bobby Helms sing his 1957 hit “Jingle Bell Rock,” and then tell me he doesn’t keep singing “feet” when the lyrics obviously are “beat.” Amazingly, some covers of this song also seem to be singing “feet.”
- Dumbest Christmas lyric of all time: The Beach Boys’ repeated (In “Little Saint Nick”) “Christmas comes this time each year.”
- I’m tempted to nominate “see the kids bunch” from “Silver Bells” for the second worst. That requires assuming that “then we got upsot” in Jingle Bells is an intentional howler.
- The lovely and wistful World War II Christmas ballad “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” refers to “presents on the tree.” Who hangs presents on a Christmas tree? How would you do that? Many recent versions substitute “”round” for on. Good.
- The late Andy Williams’ Christmas standard, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” he lists ‘scary ghost stories” as a feature of Christmas. I know the song is referring to “A Christmas Carol,” but that’s a single ghost story. Andy makes Christmas sound like Halloween…
Finally, here’s an example of how attention to tone and craft improved a Christmas song and allowed it to become, deservedly, a classic.
“Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is certainly somber, but having been through some sad Christmases, it’s an essential part of the canon, and a wonderful song. It almost was too sad, however. Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, who wrote the song ” for Judy Garland’s 1944 movie, “Meet Me in St. Louis”, originally had the lyrics…
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
It may be your last…
Next year we may all be living in the past…
Yikes! Judy Garland and others insisted on a revision, and the songwriters ultimately settled on …
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light…
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight..
Another gloomy lyric that was vetoed:
No good times like the olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us no more..
Nice. That one became,
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more.
Ethics Alarms 
I actually thought “Mary, Did You Know?” was probably the best new Christmas song made in the last 10 years.
“Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day walk on water?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you’ve delivered, will soon deliver you
Mary did you know that your baby boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will calm a storm with his hand?
Did you know that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God
Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Mary did you know?
Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Mary did you know?
The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again
The lame will leap, the dumb will speak, the praises of the lamb
Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect lamb?
That sleeping child you’re holding is the great I am
Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Mary did you know?
Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Mary did you know? Oh
Mary did you know?”
So I Googled this for the video and lyrics, posted this, and went back to my browser and kept reading.
TIL: “Mary did you know?” was written by Mark Lowry int he 80’s. I’m back to square one.
The ’80’s is modern enough.
Yeah, but the Pentatonix could make paint drying sound wonderful. That is a group of very gifted singers.
jvb
That song has been covered by gobs of singers, but in my opinion, Mark Lowry’s own rendition – with the Gaither Vocal Band as backup – is still the best.
It’s easily my favorite “modern” Christmas song.
Oops…almost forgot another favorite:
“It Wasn’t His Child” – written by Skip Ewing. A great writer with a knack for great plays on words in his songs. It’s another one that’s been covered a bundle of times, including twice by yours truly in a couple of different Christmas Eve services.
I was going to post just to mention this one. It’s making it’s way into radio rotations and such so that I think it’s a standard now.
Also, “Christmas Canon” is vaguely spiritual and a good enough song that it makes my Spotify playlist.
Coincidentally, I just heard this song for the first time today, on the Sirius “Nativity” channel, in a very nice version by “The Five Contractors.” Way too religious for widespread play, which is a shame. Excellent.
There are curmudgeons (wannabe theological know-it-alls) out there who relegate “Mary, Did You Know?” to the same category as “Were You There?” These are people who are fundamentally fundamentalist in their thinking and their poetic IQs are 0.
Let us not forget “Christmas in Hollis”.
* Presents on the tree: It’s my understanding that gifts in the 19th century were sometimes hung on the tree, especially if they were small.
Not really done anymore.
* I’ve never gotten the “ghost stories” in Williams’ song.
* It’s my understanding that it was Sinatra would made “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” more bouncy than Garland’s version during the 50s when the war was over by having “From now on…” replace “Next year” and “hang a shining star upon the highest bough” instead of “until then we’ll just have to muddle through somehow”.
Yup, those were the next round of changes. They’re fine; I don’t think they are necessary. War or no war, An awful lot of Americans know that after Christmas, they’ll be back to “muddling through somehow.”
Me, for instance…
Not really done in the 1940s, either. Or that character who’s longing for home has been away a LONG time…
>> “Santa Looked A Lot Like Daddy,”
You’re kidding me – I literally just took off my ear buds after hearing this for the first time!
I also agree, quite a rip off. I am not even sure if Susan Rye is supposed to be Buck’s sister or mother….
I wasn’t kidding: I did my homework!
Besides the lame choice of songs playing over and over this year, has anyone noticed the insanely slowwwwwww tempo of every song??? I’m talkin slowwwwwww. It’s putting everyone to sleep and it’s gotta stop. Let’s get more upbeat here folks at XM.
I blame John Lennon.
I cannot help but think of poor Mary, who just gave birth, and has to put up with an enthusiastic child banging his drum for her. She must have the patience of a…..
It’s actually an old, forgotten tradition to tell ghost stories around Christmas (ironically, from Christmases long, long ago.)
https://979kickfm.com/why-are-scary-ghost-stories-in-a-christmas-song/
“It’s actually an old, forgotten tradition to tell ghost stories around Christmas (ironically, from Christmases long, long ago.)”
THAT, I did not know.
So the line is like the “hanging presents on the tree” reference—it pretends that a long dead tradition is current.
Christmas is layer upon layer of old traditions few know the origins of. I love when I see a new show on one of the history themed channels. And things may still be current for some people. We still observe customs brought over from Europe that are less commercial. I’m glad to explain for anyone.
“Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
“And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.”
The Raven
Scary stories at Christmastime is a tradition also referenced in “The Phantom of the Opera .” When the two main characters reunite as adults, they reminisce about the lost Christmases of their shared youth, so, again, only as a reference to a once-observed, fondly remembered, but now-lost Christmas tradition. So, something once practiced by kids away from adult ears? That could be why it’s always in remembrance, never in practice. A tradition passed on, not by parents to their children, but from older to younger kids. With parents now invading their kids’ lives, I suppose there’s not much of that family dynamic anymore.
That settles it: we’re reading HP Lovecraft this Christmas eve. The heck with “The Littlest Angel.”
Aside: yesterday I checked out “Nativity”, the Sirius station that pledges to play only Christmas music “of faith.” First came a nice rendition of “O Little Town of Bethlehem.”
Then came “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Faith!
I read HPL’s “The Festival” every Christmas Eve:
“It was the Yuletide, that men call Christmas though they know in their hearts it is older than Bethlehem and Babylon, older than Memphis and mankind. It was the Yuletide, and I had come at last to the ancient sea town where my people had dwelt and kept festival in the elder time when festival was forbidden; where also they had commanded their sons to keep festival once every century, that the memory of primal secrets might not be forgotten.”
My wife had 2 sons before we met. One was 18 when he was killed in a car accident by a drunk driver around Christmas the other passed away on December 17, 2010 from complications of his TBI resulting from an MVA in 1995 .
The song I’ll be home for Christmas has been a nightmare for her since 1988. I can imagine how many other parents suffer the pain that song inflicts.
I like “A New York Christmas” by Rob Thomas. I think it’s a good song whether during Christmas or not It’s obviously secular, and was written after he did private shows at Christmas for a Children’s Hospital for a few years.
Not sure how to put in a link (if allowed), but it’s here:
Missed that one…thanks
How about “Fairytale of New York?”
You’re a bum
You’re a punk
You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last
I don’t think that will make Casey Kassem’s hits .
Uh, nope. But I like the lyrics. Very nice.
jvb
I’m glad I’ve missed that one, it will join Pentatonix’ ‘Hallelujah’ to make me change channel with extreme prejudice.
Stipulation: I am a Philistine.
Stipulation: I am not a huge Leonard Cohen fan. “Hallelujah” is an exception because it is an exceptional song. His version, that is.
Can someone please explain to me why everyone has to sing and slaughter that song?! Why?! I hear the faux warbling and emoting, caterwauling and uncontrollable vibratos and I want to pull my eyes out of my head.
jvb
The Canadian Tenors don’t sing it badly.
It’s easy to sing.
Actually, to do the song justice, it is quite difficult to sing. There must be the right amount of reverence and decadence. Cohen and Jeff Buckley capture the balance. Others just whine or whinge or slaughter the song. I do allow for my prejudices overtaking my ability to enjoy modern pop music, though. Starting around the time Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston became popular, along with Christina Aguilera, vocalists decided that they simply must over-emote by warbling and extending one syllable words into whole stanzas, touching every microtone from the tonic to subdominant and back. Tiresome and boring.
jvb
Let me clarify: It’s easy to sing badly, as opposed to other epics like “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “O Holy Night.” which are outside the range of the average mortal.
Yep. On that we do agree. Most vocalists should be prohibited by ordinance issued by the UN High Commission of Musical Integrity from singing that song.
jvb
PS: Yes, I know that is a totalitarian of me but we simply must prevent dilution of the culture by awful singer singing excellent songs. Unless it is a song sung by Frank Zappa, then anything is fair game.
I don’t mind songs that want to make a social point… I just don’t think it should be tagged as Christmas, SJ is the theme, not a holiday.
“Fairytale of New York” still sounds better than “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime”, which is the worst song – Christmas-related or otherwise – in the history of humanity.
If there was a Christmas song with the title of “I Chopped the Presents Up With an Axe on Christmas Day Before I Kicked the Neighbor in the Head and Burned the Churches Down and Spit on the Mistletoe and Let the Dog Pee in the Egg Nog”…that song would still be better than “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmastime.”
And I LOVE Egg Nog…
Comment of the Day.
Eggnog? Who admits to loving eggnog?
jvb
A fellow Philistine like myself. I thought all Philistines loved it…
Ah. I might have to revisit my aversion to eggnog.
jvb
There are always a few new Christmas songs that come out each year and most fade away quickly.
One I particularly liked for its mix of modern culture and religion was “Paper Angels” by Jimmy Wayne (you can still find it on YouTube). Another newer original is “A Baby Changes Everything” by Faith Hill.
Of course there are the sentimental Christmas songs like “Old Time Christmas” by Randy Travis, “Let it be Christmas” by Alan Jackson, and “Christmas in Dixie” by Alabama.
Amy Grant’s “Tender Tennessee Christmas” is popular around my state.
I put Christmas carols in the same category as modern liturgical music: it’s mostly awful and should be forgotten to the sands of time.
jvb
Agreed. I can’t wait for the radio stations to stop playing them. I Half-jokingly tell my wife my favorite Christmas song is snoopy and the Red Baron. At least it’s catchy!!!
It’s truer than it ever was: for both hymns and Advent music it’s best to go as ancient as possible.
My favorite, in keeping with the “modern” theme, is an English translation of an Ancient Greek hymn set to an old French melody called ‘Picardy’. Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence reminds us of the reason for the season!
Yes, some of the lyrics are poorly written. However, I can give a lyricist a bit of a pass because the lyricist may have rhythmic or thematic constraints dictated by the music.
This, however, is unforgivable, as there is no such constraint. My wife’s car was towed from an apartment complex where she was visiting her friend and disabled son. No good deed goes unpunished, eh? I filed a tow complaint with the City of Houston. This is part of the response, coming from the City (!!!!):
“After speaking with management and you find out they do not have a valid contract or towing signs posted, please let us no.”
Yup. Homonyms are tricky things.
jvb
Houyhnhnms too. But guileless. 🙂
Unless they’re talking hoarses.
I’d rather listen the Jethro Tull Christmas Album than 99.9% of the pablum played on the radio, in stores, etc.
Weird watch the Jingle Bell Christmas video when there is zero synchronization between the sound and the videos of the band. You get used to that sort of thing.
From Mame – We Need a Little Christmas. Helps me get through the holidays, even though the characters are singing about celebrating Christmas in an unseasonal way.
Strange: we can’t go backward to the time when people could actually believe the meaning in those hymns — since now we live in a devastated landscape where meaning is meaningless — but neither can we go forward into some resolution of the disharmony and toward some new healing understanding. It is an Impasse.
OK, OK, so let me explain. At this point (I suggest) we need to drop the optimistic pose vis-a-vis nearly everything that faces us in the outer world. I am entirely convinced that what remains for us is the force of our own will when it is combined with Grace as we turn inward, and that it may be possible to share this inward-turning sentiment — as a kind of ‘joy’ — with other people who have turned inward similarly . . .
. . . but the Outer World is not even merely a world of chaos but is a world that actually turns round to face us — like an enraged dog-like creature — with genuine malice. What I am referring to essentially by ‘outer world’ is the world of deliberate mechanism be them corporate or business mechanism or government mechanism of the type that is developing in China: the clearest example of what, in truth, we must face to the degree that we might say, with any seriousness, “We are Christian”. In actual point of fact — forgive my dark insinuation — the Anti-Christ has already been born, or put another way the necessary structure for an anti-human Anti-Christ has already been built or established as a ‘platform’. It is just a matter of time at this point.
So, there is a kind of ridiculous childlike silliness (as in dopey and drunk) in the forced harmony of Christmas hymns and jingles . . . when seen from a certain angle the strongest influence in our world today is not of anything resembling ‘holiness’ but rather the ubiquity of abomination. It creeps in innocently but then with each passing decade it claims more and more space, until finally it controls *space* in all senses.
That post, my lady friend, is a new height in angular argumentation. You came in strong (“OK, OK . . .”), leading me to believe that we were going to be treated to some erudition. Then, you went all sideways on us.
I have no idea what any of that means. Remember, I am a Philistine and can be quite obtuse when called upon to do so. At first, I thought you were talking about the cold, cold universe outside of our little planet revolving around a star, where once outside out atmosphere, we would perish within minute or seconds or . . . well, quickly. Then, you went all China-is-a-secular-religious-state-bound-to-dominate-the-worldy on me and lost to the abominations and vicissitudes of the Dark Overlord plotting eternal damnation and the ruination of souls. Then, you went to the childlike melodies and sentiments of Christmas carols as a salve against such degradation. Please clarify.
jvb
I took it to mean that Christmas hymns and jingles have become almost silly bromides (is that the right word?…platitudes maybe?…cliches?) in a world that has increasingly turned its back on – or become hostile to (the enraged dog-like creature) – most things “Christian” or related to God.
Do I hit near the mark?
Oh. That makes sense. Never mind.
jvb
I may be wrong, so I’m hopeful Alizia Tyler will respond directly to you to clarify…for the both of us.
I think Joel Mundt picked up on what I was getting at. One of the great advantages of Jack and his Blog is that Jack comes from almost a ‘classical’ position in relation to the American Republic, its presidencies, and the Constitution. So, it has been useful for me to read in this area, for example ‘The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution’ I have been reading over the last few days. And now I understand things (a little) better.
There is something so unusual, so unique, so original to the origins of the nation, that I am uncertain if it could be repeated. How it all came about was through a unique set of circumstances.
Could it be repeated in post-Mao China and under its present rulership? I do not think that it could. And what will happen when those who manage culture — the State, the economy, its businesses, and nearly everything that goes on in it — are in the hands of people like this?
That is why I refer to ‘mechanisms’. A mechanism is non-human. If a society like China advances considerable in its ‘Smart City’ projects — is there a way that this cannot and will not advance? — there will arise the most effective, absolute and thorough control-mechanisms that were ever dreamed of in the darkest dreams of those who feared the Stuarts. But it is not just China that will become seduced by these managerial control possibilities. They are effectively already in place within our own sphere, except they are not in government’s hands.
So, if you take the Ultimate Meaning of the Incarnation of Christ as offering the ultimate and most exalted possibility of human freedom and liberty — the vision and the power to create structures that free and liberate persons in a transcendent sense — we have to face the fact, I think it is unavoidable, that we live in a time where systems of purely temporal power are devising control systems that pretend to *liberty* and ‘freedom* but in truth are opposite. And it is not only that we have to look *over there* to notice that rather evil things are being constructed, things that completely and fundamentally oppose the ‘liberty’ conceived of and sought by those we call the Founders, but that they too are rising among us here.
Therefore the relevancy of the Christian revelation, and the essence of it, is not mere religious nuttery but the foundation on which a proper opposing stance can take shape.
Thanks for clarifying. I think you are right on the money, so to speak. I tend to think that government mechanisms aren’t the only things to worry about. Corporate control over individual privacy is a huge problem and will only get worse. It is significant that I can search for a new 5500 watt power generator and within minutes get web-based ads for such an appliance on Facebook, Yahoo, etc.
jvb
I personally like the Charlie Brown music this time of year (or whenever, come to think of it), but there are no words.
Mannheim Steamroller and does a good job (no words again).
The Trans- Siberian Orchestra actually has faux traditional songs… some of which are strange, but good listening, if you do not have an aversion to synth.
All of these are fun, and you won’t be tempted to sing when there are no words.
Hello there Comrade Slick:
Oddly enough, that tune makes the Christmas playlists online… I don’t mind.
Of course, the Industrial-Political Complex likely has some nefarious reason for making me listen to such… but I have decided to just relax and enjoy the Holidays this year.
Come Jan 1: the battle resumes. 🙂
The Industrial Complex has only noted, and recorded, that you listened. Took into consideration where you were when you listened and what you did before and after. Who was near perhaps.
The Political Complex? Hmmmm. Presently, they (*it*?) has bigger fishes to fry. BDS on the campuses, a president to weaken, a peculiar war against threatening speech … all in the name of free-speech.
A modern Christmas song that I think is one of the very best. Others may differ.
But then, I was 4 years old when I crawled up our chimney just to prove Father Christmas was a Fairy Story.
May we all work towards making a time of Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All.