Sunny 104.5's all-Christmas-music format disproves the Falwell/O'Reilly/John Birch "war on Christmas" theory. It also proves that the Clear Channel programming directors have limited, and awful, taste.
In comments below, both Mnemosyne and Andrew mention the Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" as an all-time Christmas classic. But you won't hear that in Sunny's playlist. What you will hear are endless not-so-varied variations of a dozen or so chestnuts roasting on an open fire, with a heavy emphasis on the MOR cuts from the "Very Special Christmas" collections. On the whole, it's like a bad cup of coffee — tepid, sugary and way too white.
That's a shame, because there's a whole lot of great Christmas music out there. Pop Matters offers an Indispensable Guide to Holiday Music that rounds up the best and worst of this year's offerings. I'd particularly call your attention to the collection "A John Waters Christmas," this:
… Motley collection of obscure gems, hand-picked by the Baron of Bad Taste himself, is just about as perfect as Christmas records get. This one's got it all: old school soul sides that deserve canonical inclusion (Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva's "I Wish You a Merry Christmas" is simply divine), foulmouthed redneck swipes at the season's commercialism, doo-wop, a singing saw, Tiny Tim and religious fervor as kitsch. And then there's the collection's coup de grace: "Santa Claus Is a Black Man," a funky single that Waters tracked down on eBay after years of searching.
One of the odd things about the category of "Christmas" music is that it has come to include many songs that have nothing to do with Christmas at all. I referred to these in the previous post as "Winter songs." Examples include: "Sleigh Ride," "Jingle Bells," "Winter Wonderland," "Baby, It's Cold Outside," "Let It Snow!" and "Frosty the Snowman."
None of these mentions or even alludes to Christmas. "Frosty" is explicitly set at the other end of winter — just before the spring thaw. And the sly pleading of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (I'm partial to the Ray Charles/Nina Simone version) seems more appropriate for Valentine's Day.
But the point here is these songs are about winter. Yet we never hear them at all after Christmas. Four days into winter and our winter songs all get mothballed for another 11 months.
I suppose Falwell and O'Reilly could try to argue that such generic seasonal songs are part of the "War on Christmas." But I think what's happening is the opposite of what they claim. These winter songs aren't taking over Christmas — Christmas has overtaken them.
To be honest, I can do without most of them anyway — although I do like "Winter Wonderland." (My favorite version is a mariachi rendition from Steve Taylor, accompanied by a band he hired out of the Los Angeles phone book.)
Some additional, haphazard thoughts on Christmas music:
* Mike T. mentions the Kinks' "Father Christmas" as a "lovely, bitter" Christmas classic. I agree — we need more angry, class-conscious Christmas songs like it. This was, after all, the template established with the Very First Christmas Song ever recorded — Mary's Magnificat. As recorded in the first chapter of Luke's Gospel, it reads like something Joe Strummer might've written:
He has brought down rulers from their thrones / but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things / but has sent the rich away empty.
* It's easy to miss, but there's a whiff of that same fervor in the classic carol "O Holy Night," which was written by a radical French socialist and translated into English by an abolitionist. Thus lines like these: "chains shall he break for the slave is our brother / and in his name all oppression shall cease." The impact of this radical hymn is usually blunted, though, by its soaring melody, which invites the worst kind of oversinging. (Celine Dion's version is getting heavy rotation on Sunny 104.5. After listening to her version, cleanse the palatte by listening to Eric Cartman's cattle-prodded rendition.)
* What is Johnny Mathis doing singing "We Need a Little Christmas?" Thank you, Mr. Mathis. You have a lovely voice, I'm just not sure you're what we had in mind for the part of Auntie Mame. We'll call you.
* Likewise, why is Sunny still playing the Jackson 5's now-creepy-seeming rendition of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus?" It makes me feel like I'm eavesdropping on a therapy session and Michael's having a breakthrough regarding some repressed memory.
* I'm not sure why "My Favorite Things" falls into the Christmas category. It's not even a winter song — in the play/movie it's sung during a thunder storm. It does mention "snowflakes" and "brown paper packages tied up with string," but the latter doesn't really so much suggest Christmas as it does the anticipatory thrill of unexpected mail. Having said that, Coltrane's reinvention is pure genius.
* Things I'm a fan of: Christmas songs in a minor key (e.g., Sam Phillips' haunting "Midnight Clear"); inscrutable English carols (who was Good King Wenceslaus? and what the hell is the baby Jesus doing in a flotilla of three ships?); Mariah Carey's Phil-Spector-ish "All I Want for Christmas" (I offer no defense or apology for this); Danny Elfman's "Edward Scissorhands" soundtrack (not even seasonal, but somehow appropriate); anything sung by a character whose name includes the suffix "-Miser"; story-songs about World War I soldiers calling a truce to celebrate Christmas — provided that one of those soldiers is not Snoopy.
* "Fairytale of New York," like many of the best Christmas songs, is less about the holiday itself than it is about a kind of wistful, year-end taking stock. Some songs make this explicit — such as "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" or even The Waitresses' "Christmas Wrapping" — but more often it's implicit, sometimes suggested only by the tone of the song. Loss and regret thus feature prominently in Christmas music.
* Consider, for example, the recurring theme of "home" as an unattainable dream, a place one cannot get to — as in "I'll Be Home for Christmas," "Please Come Home for Christmas," "Christmas, Baby Please Come Home," "2,000 Miles." I prefer any of those to the cloyingly upbeat, "Home for the Holidays." I don't really want to hear Fezziwig singing about how much happier than me he is. I'd rather hear from Scrooge when he's outside the party, looking in. (That's part of the appeal of Vince Guaraldi's music for the Charlie Brown Christmas Special.) There's a fine line here, though. I like Randy Stonehill's "Christmas at Denny's," but it's a probably a bit too self-consciously maudlin.
* Speaking of "self-consciously maudlin," my friend BD recently explained his take on Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne." In general, I think good Christmas songs aren't so much about nostalgia for childhood innocence, but about regret for the loss of it. But that's no excuse for using bathos as a sledgehammer. Anyway, BD points out that Fogelberg really has nothing to be so depressed about. He's a successful pop star. Sure, touring is hard, but boo hoo. His poor ex, however, is going to be late getting home to her architect husband, where she'll have to explain, after three beers, that she's been parking with a rock star. That'll probably be the last straw in her already strained and loveless marriage and she'll be out on the street. In the rain. Dan Fogelberg: homewrecker.
* While I don't like "Home for the Holidays," I do like Robert Earl Keen's twist on this theme, "Merry Christmas From the Family." Some of it's a bit too Jeff-Foxworthy-ish, but some of the details are dead-on, such as the ad hoc convenience-store shopping lists:
Carve the turkey, turn the ball game on / Mix margaritas when the eggnog's gone
Send somebody to the Quickpak Store / We need some ice and an extension chord,
A can of bean dip and some Diet Rites, / A box of tampons, Marlboro Lights …
* Does Tom Waits' "Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis" count as a Christmas song? Aside from the title, it never mentions Christmas. But, like so many good Christmas songs, it captures that year-end, taking-stock, regretfulness — with just a hint of the possibility of a new beginning. (Ben Folds' desolate "Brick" is also set at Christmastime, yet somehow it isn't regarded as a holiday favorite either.)
* I've heard the Bowie & Bing "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" duet so many times that I've almost forgotten how breathtakingly weird the whole idea of it is. I'm taking nominations in comments below for what you think should be the next odd-couple bizarre duet on a Christmas song.
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