I hate almost all Christmas music.
Admitting something like that this time of year is dangerous, I know, and I'm not entirely certain the Holiday Gestapo won't be pulling up in my driveway to take me away to a Christmas re-education camp sometime soon.
For the most part, Christmas music is largely a genre filled with remixes and covers. Everyone from Enrico Caruso to Weezer has a version of the standard hymn "Silent Night," but the message still stays the same: Jesus has been born and it's a silent, holy night that also happens to be calm and bright.
Genre-switching doesn't do a damn thing. As interesting as some of the interpretations are, you're still listening to something that was composed by Germans in the mid-19th century.
If I wanted to do that, I'd listen to Brahms.
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts did an interesting reworking of "The Little Drummer Boy" for their "I Love Rock & Roll" album, but having Joan sing it just leads to a healthy amount of gender confusion. If a woman is singing, shouldn't it be "The Little Drummer Girl?"
Christmas staples like Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby" are well-loved by many, but I don't think people really stop to think about the lyrics in their totality.
As much as I love listening to Kitt roll her R's in that wonderfully seductive French fashion, the song seems to essentially imply that Santa is Kitt's sugar daddy, and if he gives her all the things she asks for (sable, a '54 convertible, a deed to a platinum mine, etc.), she'll make it worth his while.
Maybe I'm interpreting the lyrics wrong, but Kitt's voice seems to imply that Santa won't be getting the standard milk and cookies when he goes down her chimney.
As commercial as this holiday has become, I don't think
quasi-prostitution is a message we should equate with Santa or Jesus' birthday.
I'm sure many of you have fond memories of the various Rankin/Bass Christmas movies ("Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer," "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "The Year Without a Santa Claus"), but even they have issues.
Burl Ives, the tremendous actor who gave voice to the character of Sam the Snowman for the "Rudolph" films, was a great singer, but I can't watch that movie or listen to Ives sing without thinking of his horrifying role as Big Daddy in the film version of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof."
Tennessee Williams unknowingly ruined my childhood from beyond the grave because now I get a mental image of Sam the Snowman going home, getting drunk and hitting on his snow daughter-in-law that may or may not be played by Elizabeth Taylor.
Trust me when I say that's a mental image you don't want.
There's really only one Christmas song that passes muster in my book, and it's one that I think most people would balk at: Joni Mitchell's "River," off of her iconic "Blue" album.
"Jingle Bells" attempts to weave throughout the song, as Mitchell tells us of the end of her relationship that has happened so terribly close to Christmas. What was a bright, cheerful Christmas carol has now become a dirge for Mitchell's failures at love.
Sure, it's sad and haunting, but after spending extended amounts of time with family members over the holidays, who among us doesn't wish for a river we could skate away on?
I suppose we all celebrate the holiday differently, but, for my money, weepy folk ballads with a heavy-handed piano player slamming the keys are the way to go.
Keep your Bing Crosby "White Christmas" or your Judy Garland "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"; Joni and I will celebrate our way.
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