Editor’s Note: Here in Virginia, our Governor has issued some additional emergency restrictions on his subjects. I will see whether or not they actually affect us, since we are following the usual Cold & Flu common sense precautions. I wear a mask to enter the the health facility before taking it off to swim, avoid other crowds, wash hands, blah blah. You know, the same common sense stuff that has got us through the last seventy years of personal Cold & Flu seasons. To think that our Republic was overthrown about this completely common phenomenon is pretty cool. To live in a place where the Governor feels like telling us, under penalty of law, how to live our lives is equally amazing. I have a strange sense of discontinuity, since we are doing what we have always done, but now the police (instead of Mom) are involved. Marlow is much more reasonable today, as he normally is. Let’s get with some seasonal sounds, and remember what Mom told us to do. Not the Governor.

– Vic

Author’s note: With our airwaves filled with seasonal sounds, here’s a brief personal look at the music. Many of the pop tune music videos are worth checking out on YouTube

– Marlow

Holiday Songs

There are two aspects to end-of-year holy season songs — one of joyous celebration and one of solemn acknowledgment that humanity’s falling required God to descend to this earthly plain to save us from ourselves. So at least for me classic holiday music comes in distinct varieties — Joy and Reverence.

And so it goes with the #1s on my “best” lists of seasonal songs.

My two lists are topped with classics — Joy to the World and Silent Night. The first is instantly uplifting and always makes its singers and listeners feel happy. When performed by an orchestra and choir it is transcendent. The only song that matches it is the Hallelujah Chorus in Handel’s Messiah, but as composed that song is really an Easter tune and is thus excluded from this list. Silent Night on the other end is spine chillingly amazing anytime it’s performed by a group as it evokes the holiday’s solemn nature. Its only competition is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear which evokes the same feelings for me. The amazing story of who created Silent Night and how it was created further pushes into the top spot.

A few others on these two lists, mostly because I sang them at midnight masses decades ago, include — Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Adeste Fideles, Angels We Have Heard on High, and O Little Town of Bethlehem.

American pop culture has graced us with many fine tunes:

Fah who foraze! Dah who doraze! — it must be accompanied by the playing a tah-tinker, of course.

Baby It’s Cold Outside

I saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Sleigh Ride (Ronettes version)

WW II era’s I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Ray Charles’ Spirit of Christmas

12 Days of Christmas, or as W calls it Twelve Days of Marlow (to be detailed at a later date)

Chuck Berry’s Run Rudolph Run

The Christmassy parts of movie soundtrack from Die Hard

Santa Baby – my parents had Eartha Kitts’ version in seasonal heavy play back in the day.

Sock it to me, Santa by Bob Seeger

Fairytale of New York – not exactly a member of either above category.

Robert Earl Keen’s Merry Christmas from the Family – its lyrics and music video alone should get REK into the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Here’s a late arriving set of lyrics that should serve as the CDC’s 2020 holiday pandemic celebration humbug guidance theme song — Christmas in the Room by Sufjan Stevens:

No travel plans, no shopping malls
No candy canes, no Santa Claus
For as the day of rest draws near
It’s just the two of us this year

No silver bells or mistletoe
We’ll kiss and watch our TV shows

I’ll come to you, I’ll sing to you
Like it’s Christmas in the room
I’ll dance with you, I’ll laugh with you
‘Til it’s Christmas in the room

No traffic jams, no ice and storm
Far in the house the fire is warm
No Christmas tree, no great parade
It’s just an ordinary day

No parties planned, no place to go
It’s just the two of us alone
And in the house we see a light
That comes from what we feel inside

I’ll come to you, I’ll sing to you
Like it’s Christmas in the room
I’ll dance with you, I’ll laugh with you
‘Til it’s Christmas in the room
‘Til it’s Christmas in the room

Oh, I can see the day when we’ll die
But I don’t care to think of silence
For now I hear you laughing
The greatest joy is like the sunrise

No gifts to give, they’re all right here
Inside our hearts, the glorious cheer
And in the house we see a light
That comes from what we know inside

I’ll come to you, I’ll sing to you
Like it’s Christmas in the room
I’ll dance with you, I’ll laugh with you
‘Til it’s Christmas in the room

I’ll come to you, I’ll sing to you
Like it’s Christmas in the room
I’ll dance with you, I’ll laugh with you
Like it’s Christmas in the room
Like it’s Christmas in the room
——-

Personal seasonal earworm songs include anything sung by chipmunks, AC/DC’s Be My Mistress for Christmas, John Lennon’s Happy Xmas (War is Over), Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmas Time, Feliz Navidad, and the lowest of the low –- The Little Drummer Boy.

Okay, okay, okay, up front I’ll admit there are certain Yule season songs that enervate me. A select few are even further beyond the pale of execrable gadget tunes like those %#!?@ Chipmunk songs.

The Little Drummer Boy’s monotone and somewhat dirge-like sound lock my jaws tight. That is why it’s my top pick for “turn that crap off’ upon hearing its opening bars. In addition to its funereal pace and somber notes, its constant use of the lame “pa-rum-pum-pum-pum” lyric phrase and rhyme are like fingers scraping on Sister Archangela’s 3rd grade Immaculate Conception elementary school classroom’s chalkboard. It’s four long minutes of P-R-P-P-Pum on that damn one-note drum. When I remember its origin story, it makes sense — a young drummer boy named Aaron is orphaned after “desert bandits” (jihadis) kidnapped, roasted and ate his family’s sheep herd, killed his parents and burned down their humble house.

Now some have countered that there have been redeeming versions and covers of the original. I will confess there are two covers that are quite respectable and listenable — Johnny Cash’s from 1970 and Joan Jett’s 1982 rock version. Two “so bad, they’re good” versions are Leonard Nimoy’s and Dwight Shrute’s.

I will not forward links to any of the above bad songs’ versions unless witnessed and signed liability releases of your author are provided me in triplicate for any ensuing mental, intellectual, physical or emotional distress, temporary or long term.

PS: Count on Elvis’s Blue Christmas getting seriously heavy 2020 Plague Christmas play chez Marlow.

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