In the Beginning...There is Bing Crosby
I work in an office building with hundreds of people. Many of my colleagues took off the day after Thanksgiving. I often forget that the company pipes in middle-of-the-road music all through the day because my department is always a buzz of activity. But on the day after Thanksgiving, with so few people working, I could plainly hear the music.It was Bing Crosby. Singing about snow.
There was no turning back.
From that moment on, other than in my sleep, I have not gone more than eight minutes without hearing a recording of a Christmas carol or holiday song.
Like Dogs Hearing an Ambulance, Every Singer Howls at Christmas
I don't hear quite as often the classics that dominated the December charts when I was a kid in the late 60s. The Ray Conniff singers were pretty common, singing the sweet, vanilla "We Need a Little Christmas." Want to hear Ray Conniff today? Go to thrift stores. Baby Boomers who inherit their parents' estates will keep the house and get rid of the corny albums. Anyway, where do the Ray Conniff singers fit in when you've got Mariah Carey singing "All I Want For Christmas is You."
Johnny Mathis used to be around a lot, too, but how do you find time for Johnny Mathis when every new up and coming country singer and pop singer comes out with a new album. Just last year I bought the Hilary Duff holiday songs CD for my kids. I played it this year. When Hilary sang "Same Old Christmas," the kids become somber and reflective. "Indeed," they said, "This Christmas is quite the same as the Christmas of oh-four."
Like comedians, there are few singers who can truly interpret a song, especially the sacred Christmas songs designed to create a spiritual glow. On one hand I can count the singers who should permit the word's "dear Savior's birth" to cross their lips. Christmas songs on most recordings are just mouthed, like the platitudes of a political speech. I have an old recording of Lou Rawls singing "The Little Drummer Boy." I cherish this recording. It's a scream what the great soul singer does to a song about a homeless waiting to tap his drum for the Christ child. To his credit, Lou Rawls is constitutionally incapable of singing any song that doesn't make me want to fill up two wine glasses and peel a negligee strap from the wan brown shoulder of a Mediterranean goddess. And while I nuzzle her neck, Lou sings, "I play before a king, pa-rum-pum-pum . . . oh, yeah, me and my drum. . . a-baby yes it's my drum...mmm...mmm....mmm!"
But quality interpretations or not . . . the vastness of all these songs covers us like a blanket of White Christmas snow.
Like Air, And Paris Hilton, You Can't Escape Christmas Music. But Here's Why It's Good
Christmas music is so prevalent -- in lobbies and stores -- that shoppers absently sing along in stores. I remember seeing a woman mouthing the words "round yon virgin" while comparing the prices of canned beans.
So Christmas songs, be they religious or secular, have become our folk songs. I used to think that TV sitcom themes were our modern American folk tunes, but if you gathered three American generations of different socio-economic statuses at one table, it would be music of the Christmas season that would be the connecting crossroads of their personal cultures.
I despise the cultural pressure to shop at Christmas. It is unhealthy in so many ways. Families should not feel the pressure to stress out their budgets. Children should not be overwhelmed with toys and gifts that will exceed their needs. And businesses should not have to rely on an explosion of gluttony from their customers to meet their overblown forecasts. But I do like the Christmas music because it combines many messages: The celebration of Christian faith. The excitement of gift-giving and receiving. A tribute to the natural beauties of winter. And because the songs have been around for generations, they create within every one of us a recurring thread to our past, an annual mental retreat that permits us to reflect.
It's A Triumph of Music. It's the Familiarity, Not the Sacred Message, That Is the True Power Behind the Music To Unite Us
Here's an update of the classic 1960s ad slogan," You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Levy's Rye Bread": You don't have to be a Christian to Enjoy Christmas Holiday Music. It's not the words that delight us, it is the familiarity, the continuity. The invasion of these songs each year is as reassuring as the arrival of the robins at the first thaw. In a popular culture where music lasts as long as a sugar burst, where everyone knows their own decade of pop tunes and no others, these are about the only songs that everyone would know at a group sing. Good things begin with common ground. What we do in that shared space is every year's January Challenge.
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