The Sickest Sounds of the Holidays
If you love Christmas carols - I mean REALLLLY love them, with a love bordering on pathological - then you should be listening to WTTH-FM in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This year, the station started playing nothing but holiday music on - this is for real, now - October 17th.
So by now, devoted WTTH listeners have heard "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" 437 times, truly proving that they are "Nuttin' for Christmas."
I like holiday music a lot, and am fond of so many songs that I couldn't possibly pick a favorite. But to my surprise, all my kids quickly named the carols they think are sickest. "Sick" meaning excellent. I think.
No. 1 son (age 21) said he loves the old holiday standard by Pink Floyd, called "Money." True, it has nothing to do with Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, or Druid solstice rituals. But the song's title is his favorite Christmas gift.
No. 2 son (age 20 on December 16th!) digs a tune called "Christmas in Killarney." Of course, he loves any tune with lyrics matching "Killarney" with "blarney."
He adds that he HATES "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth," because "that voice sounds like somebody stepping on a cat." He's referring to the version of the song he grew up listening to. It's performed by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, who swear in the album's liner notes that, during the song's production, no animals were harmed.
No. 3 (10) and No. 4 (8) sons are both looking for a new carol to call their favorite because, much to their dismay, their first choice was the same. Without knowing the other's fave, they both said they like "Jingle Bell Rock" best. I expect this to be the last thing they agree upon until around 2010, when they're both teenagers and they concur that I'm a blarney-spewing Druid.
No. 5 son's (4-1/2) favorite Christmas song is "Frosty the Snowman." We own several renditions of "Frosty," and No. 5 especially likes the version by "The Coal Miner's Daughter," Loretta Lynn, who customized it with a verse about her daddy being the one who dug up Frosty's eyes.
Now I will explore the lore behind these beloved holiday tunes, proving beyond any doubt that, in my expert hands, any topic can be made stupefyingly dull.
"Christmas in Killarney": Killarney is a bonnie wee city in southwest Ireland, and it goes without saying that the lilting carol about it was composed by three guys who spent their entire lives in Massachusetts.
The song was written in 1950, and in an effort to create a marketing promotion around it, Killarney's citizens created a "Christmas in Killarney Festival." Okay, okay, so it took a bit o' time to get off the ground. . .the First Annual Christmas in Killarney Festival debuted December 1, 2005. Really.
"Jingle Bell Rock": Recorded innumerable times, the version we listen to at my house is the 1957 original, performed by Bobby Helms.
Hardly anyone recognizes Helms' name these days, but when "Jingle Bell Rock" debuted, he was a big-time pop star, comparable to hitmakers of today such as Britney Spears.
I'm not suggesting that Britney's career path is in danger of mirroring Bobby's, though it's interesting to note that she's working on a holiday song that she desperately hopes people will still listen to fifty years from now - "Jiggle Bell Rock."
"Frosty the Snowman": Composed in 1950 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, who freely admitted writing it in hopes of making boatloads of dough like the writers of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Here Comes Santa Claus." (They succeeded.)
They coaxed Gene Autry into recording "Frosty," and at the same time gave him a ditty called "Peter Cottontail," which - in spite of a huge marketing effort - has still never quite caught on as a Christmas carol.
By the way, I did ask someone besides my kids for a favorite carol: My Mom, who likes "Joy to the World" best.
I should've known. I still recall those childhood days when she'd lead the family in singing it, that first phrase practically bursting from her throat - "Jeremiah was a bullfrog!"
So by now, devoted WTTH listeners have heard "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" 437 times, truly proving that they are "Nuttin' for Christmas."
I like holiday music a lot, and am fond of so many songs that I couldn't possibly pick a favorite. But to my surprise, all my kids quickly named the carols they think are sickest. "Sick" meaning excellent. I think.
No. 1 son (age 21) said he loves the old holiday standard by Pink Floyd, called "Money." True, it has nothing to do with Christmas, or Kwanzaa, or Hanukkah, or Druid solstice rituals. But the song's title is his favorite Christmas gift.
No. 2 son (age 20 on December 16th!) digs a tune called "Christmas in Killarney." Of course, he loves any tune with lyrics matching "Killarney" with "blarney."
He adds that he HATES "All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth," because "that voice sounds like somebody stepping on a cat." He's referring to the version of the song he grew up listening to. It's performed by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, who swear in the album's liner notes that, during the song's production, no animals were harmed.
No. 3 (10) and No. 4 (8) sons are both looking for a new carol to call their favorite because, much to their dismay, their first choice was the same. Without knowing the other's fave, they both said they like "Jingle Bell Rock" best. I expect this to be the last thing they agree upon until around 2010, when they're both teenagers and they concur that I'm a blarney-spewing Druid.
No. 5 son's (4-1/2) favorite Christmas song is "Frosty the Snowman." We own several renditions of "Frosty," and No. 5 especially likes the version by "The Coal Miner's Daughter," Loretta Lynn, who customized it with a verse about her daddy being the one who dug up Frosty's eyes.
Now I will explore the lore behind these beloved holiday tunes, proving beyond any doubt that, in my expert hands, any topic can be made stupefyingly dull.
"Christmas in Killarney": Killarney is a bonnie wee city in southwest Ireland, and it goes without saying that the lilting carol about it was composed by three guys who spent their entire lives in Massachusetts.
The song was written in 1950, and in an effort to create a marketing promotion around it, Killarney's citizens created a "Christmas in Killarney Festival." Okay, okay, so it took a bit o' time to get off the ground. . .the First Annual Christmas in Killarney Festival debuted December 1, 2005. Really.
"Jingle Bell Rock": Recorded innumerable times, the version we listen to at my house is the 1957 original, performed by Bobby Helms.
Hardly anyone recognizes Helms' name these days, but when "Jingle Bell Rock" debuted, he was a big-time pop star, comparable to hitmakers of today such as Britney Spears.
I'm not suggesting that Britney's career path is in danger of mirroring Bobby's, though it's interesting to note that she's working on a holiday song that she desperately hopes people will still listen to fifty years from now - "Jiggle Bell Rock."
"Frosty the Snowman": Composed in 1950 by Steve Nelson and Jack Rollins, who freely admitted writing it in hopes of making boatloads of dough like the writers of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Here Comes Santa Claus." (They succeeded.)
They coaxed Gene Autry into recording "Frosty," and at the same time gave him a ditty called "Peter Cottontail," which - in spite of a huge marketing effort - has still never quite caught on as a Christmas carol.
By the way, I did ask someone besides my kids for a favorite carol: My Mom, who likes "Joy to the World" best.
I should've known. I still recall those childhood days when she'd lead the family in singing it, that first phrase practically bursting from her throat - "Jeremiah was a bullfrog!"
# # #
Tell me your favorite Christmas carol, and I'll write something stupefyingly dull about it! Takefivet5@yahoo.com
posted by Don Stuart at 3:26 PM
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