Think About It Christmas Party Day 2: My Favorite Christmas Music
Here it is, friends, December 2, and the clock is ticking down to Christmas Day. Are you having trouble getting into the spirit this year? Feeling a bit of the Scrooge? Humbugging it all day long? Well, chances are you’re not listening to the right music. Scientists have scientifically determined that, scientifically, one’s enjoyment of Christmas can been improved exponentially by just listening to the right Christmas jams all month long. Now if I could, I’d simply post MP3s of all of the music I’m about to discuss, but I don’t have that kind of storage space and, evidently, there’s some sort of “piracy” flap going on right now and I don’t look good in an eyepatch. But just about everything I’m going to discuss should be available at your local music store or at a legal download site like iTunes, which now owes me a commission, I believe.
For me, Christmas music has to begin with Mannheim Steamroller. Their light, new agey stuff isn’t bad the rest of the year, but the way Chip Davis composes new music and arranges old classics for their unique blend of instruments - everything from state-of-the-art synthesizers to archaic instruments nobody even remembers the name of - creates an unbelievable sound that, somehow, is perfectly suited to Christmas. Their renditions of “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Angels We Have Heard on High” are some of my favorites, and their “Pat-a-Pan” is just the thing to evoke images of Christmases long ago, when people gathered by the fire and tooted away on hand-carved wooden instruments. And off their Christmas Live album, I never get tired of the piece “Going to Another Place,” a beautiful tune that really brings up images of a joyous finale, a happy ending to something wonderful. It’s music that lifts the soul, and that’s what you want at Christmas.
Similar to Mannheim Steamroller is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, a group that frequently blends different styles of music, different kinds of instruments, and all-new vocals. There’s more rock to them than the Steamroller, but then they’ll mix it up and do a piece that’s more classical in nature. “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” is no doubt their most famous number, a quiet piece that begins with strains of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and then goes into something harder and bittersweet that mixes in “Carol of the Bells” and other tunes. They’ve got multiple Christmas albums out, including Christmas Eve and Other Stories, The Christmas Attic and The Lost Christmas Eve. It’s some of the most emotional music you’ll find.
Then there’s the amazing Vince Guaraldi Trio, a group that even if you’ve never heard of, I promise, you’ve heard. This group was responsible for all the fantastic music in the legendary A Charlie Brown Christmas. Their numbers like “Linus and Lucy” and “Skating” have become as evocative of Christmas as “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells.” They also did definitive versions of classics like “Greensleeves” and “O Tannebaum.” These pieces are available on a billion CDs, and a few years ago Cyrus Chestnut and Friends did a cover album of all the music from A Charlie Brown Christmas, doing a spectacular job, particularly their version of “Christmastime is Here,” with vocals by Vanessa Williams.
Other Christmas specials have given us real classics as well. Thurl Ravenscroft is a name known to… well… probably about three people in the world besides myself. Which is a shame, because everybody knows his two most famous roles - the voice of Tony the Tiger and the singer of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” from How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (The real one. The one directed by Chuck Jones.) Then there are all the fantastic songs from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, including “Silver and Gold,” “There’s Always Tomorrow,” “We’re a Couple of Misfits,” “Holly Jolly Christmas” and, of course, the titular song, “Kidnap the Sandy Claws.”
Ooops - that last one was from Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, featuring fantastic music by Danny Elfman. “What’s This?” has also become a real Christmas favorite of mine. A lot of my Christmas favorites are from movies, in fact. “One More Sleep ‘Till Christmas” comes from The Muppet Christmas Carol, for instance. A couple of years ago, a little movie called Love Actually warmed up the very cockles of my heart, which is still illegal in some counties in Alabama. But aside from being a wonderful film containing no less than 11 separate love stories, the movie also gave us some nice Christmas music. I’ve never cared for Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas is You,” but actress Olivia Olson did a really good cover of it, and Bill Nighy singing “Christmas is All Around” is a new favorite of mine. Then there was the Will Ferrell film Elf from 2003, which proved that not only is actress Zooey Deschanel one of the cutest human beings on the planet, but she’s got a fantastic singing voice to boot. Her version of “Baby It’s Cold Outside” (performed with Leon Redbone on the soundtrack) is now on permanent rotation on my music player.
There are a lot of individual songs from different artists that I like as well. Barenaked Ladies are one of my favorite contemporary groups (If you can get through “If I Had $1,000,000” without laughing, I don’t want to know you), and last year they put out an album of their own, Barenaked For the Holidays, which included Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s songs. The entire album is good, with covers of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” and “I Have a Little Dreidel,” as well as original songs like “Christmas Pics” and the bizarre “Deck the Stills.” The gem of the album, though, is “Elf’s Lament,” where BNL and guest Michael Buble sing the woes of an elf toiling away in Santa’s workshop, making observations such as “That silly red hat makes the fat man look outrageous.” It’s a peppy song, and drop-dead funny too.
Jason Mraz has recently released a really unique - and fun - rendition of “Winter Wonderland.” The Goo Goo Dolls have a tender song called “Better Days” that I’m quite fond of. The Beach Boys, of course, have “Little Saint Nick” and Chicago does an awesome variation on “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” that throws in a whole new refrain of “What’s it gonna be, Santa?” Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)” is an absolute classic, one of the greatest Christmas songs ever recorded - not this has stopped everyone from Neil Sedaka to Chaka Khan from recording their own versions.
Let’s look at some old comedy favorites. “The Chipmunk Song?” Classic. Yogi Yorgesson’s “I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas?” Hysterical. Elmo and Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer?” Not Likely to Cause Severe Brain Hemorrhages. May I also recommend “Nuttin’ For Christmas” (the Stan Freberg rendition, of course), Gayla Peevey’s “I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas” and, of course, the inimitable Daffy Duck performing “All I Want For Christmas is More, More, More.” Mel Blanc, who provided the voices of most of your favorite Looney Tunes, also recorded a hysterical (if somewhat politically incorrect) tune years ago called “The Hat I Got For Christmas is Too Big,” in which a Speedy Gonzales sound-alike bemoans the fact that his lovely Christmas sombrero is so enormous that it completely obstructs his vision. (“Can’t tell one thing from another, I got married to my brother,” the poor narrator sings.)
I’m also a big fan of the Reduced Shakespeare Company - a comedy troupe responsible for a lot of really funny stage plays including The Complete Works of Williams Shakespeare [Abridged] and The Complete History of America [Abridged], two plays I was lucky enough to perform in a few years back. They released a Christmas album which was plenty funny, and contained two musical numbers to speak of. “The Ultimate Christmas Carol” is a nice way to summarize the entire season in about 30 seconds. (“Jingle Bells, King Wenceslas! Fa-la-la-la-la! The first Noel!”) They also have a number called “Mrs. Santa Claus,” which of course is about the real power up at the North Pole.
You can’t forget the classics, of course, or new versions of them. Otis Redding did one of the best renditions of “White Christmas” in history, and I could listen to Mike Finnegan’s “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” straight through until Easter. Then there are songs that are just plain fun, like Bing Crosby singing “Mele Kalikimaka” or “Christmas in Kilarny,” both of which have a sing along factor of 9.9 on a scale of one to eight. Then just a few weeks ago, while hanging out with my friends Chase and Jenny, Chase confessed a deep abiding love for “Dominick the Donkey,” best performed by Lou Monte. This admission, of course, prompted Jenny to play the song for us, and frankly, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard the duet of Chase doing the “Hee-Haw! Hee-Haw!” refrain while I bang along on a set of Nintendo Gamecube bongo drums.
I’ve gone over about 45 songs here. That’s about a tenth of the Christmas tracks I’ve actually got saved and spinning in my iTunes player even as I write this (468 tracks total, to be precise). Granted, a lot of those are different versions of the same songs, but that still gives you an idea of just how much Christmas music I listen to. I’ve got my favorites, of course, and I’m sure you do as well. So feel free to share - I love to learn about new songs and remember classics. Warm up your own CD players, and have a Merry one, guys!
Blake M. Petit will continue the Christmas Party on Monday. Wanna know with what? Come on back. Contact him with comments, suggestions or your favorite Christmas tunes at BlakePT@cox.net, visit him on the web at Evertime Realms and view the Evertime Realms Livejournal, blakemp .