This has probably been discussed before, but a cursory search of the boards didn’t turn it up, so …
A bit of background info. A few years back I first heard the Emerson, Lake & Palmer song “(I Believe in) Father Christmas.” I absolutely LOVED the song. Wonderful tune, the vocals mesh nicely … it just pushes all my holiday buttons (and I don’t have a lot of them, frankly). Always got me smiling goofily when it came on the radio.
However, when I finally figured out the words, I was a bit disheartened. The song is not a cheerful, uplifting bit o’ holiday spirit; it’s kinda depressing, actually. I still love the song, though. I’m just careful not to sing along when the kids are in the car.
So – anybody else got a holiday song (or any other kind of song, for that matter) that they loved for the tune and what they thought the message was, only to discover the song actually meant something else? (Kinda like Ronald Reagan using Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” as an example of stirring Americana, without realizing it was an indictment on the treatment of Vietnam vets.)
Actually Sauron, the ELP song is the first on my list. I had the exact same initial feelings as you–I suspect that great horn part has something to do with it on my account anyway–but after actually hearing the words…well, you said it yourself.
I’ve already gone on at length in the Pit about the trauma inflicted on me as a small child who didn’t understand the “joke” of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.”
Is there a new holiday song out there on the radio about shoes? I caught a snippet of this on the radio, and thought I heard a line about “Mommy is in heaven now.” Hopefully I misunderstood. I can only imagine this will send kids into fits of hysterics. Or maybe send me into fits of hysterics. This went on my “Avoid at All Costs” lists.
Will I get lynched for saying I don’t like the John Lennon holiday song that most people love? With all due respect to the memory and legacy of Mr. Lennon, the line “and what have you done?” just irritates me. Other people seem to see this as a nice way of taking stock over the past year, but it always strikes me as being very accusatory. I might be misunderstanding it, but I can’t shake the distaste I have for it. And the “little kid” voices annoy me.
I have the “Best of” cd of EL&P, on which is the song mentioned in the opening post. I enjoyed it for all the same reasons as you until I finally listened to it enough to get all the words.
Sir Dirx – You’re a strange individual. I like that in a person.
struuter – I had a feeling, somehow, that your take on the song would correspond with mine. We very well could have been separated at birth, you know.
delphica – There was a horrible bit of holiday tripe that came out a few years ago, sung in a child’s voice, and I seem to recall that death was a central theme in this song. It got a ton of airtime one Christmas, and then faded quickly. I don’t remember anything about shoes, specifically, so it may not be the same song you’ve heard, but it sounds like it’s from the same genre. I HATE crap like that.
Completely different point: Has anyone else noticed how much the Bing Crosby version of “White Christmas” sounds like a funeral dirge?
Actually, I’m listening to the very song right now.
I’ll add another, if I may…Frosty the Snowman? Yeah…um…he MELTS at the end. The whole part about him coming back again to play or whatever–yeah, that pretty much blew the whole let’s-build-a-snowman-thing for me as a child.
When I was but a lad, I thought the lyrics from “Winter Wonderland” were:
“In the meadow, we can build a snowman,
and pretend that he is parched and brown…”
How on earth could that be bad? I would have gone for the whole “soulmate” thing, but since you and Ogre apparently have something going, I figured I was safer just implying we were related somehow.
poopah chalupa – That made me laugh for 40 seconds. I needed that. Thanks.
Since this is a major hijack, I’ll just put on this lp of Perry Como’s greatest Christmas hits…mmmmm, how about ‘I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas’?
Just to keep the mood of the thread–because I’ve never really understood Perry Como anyway.
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Sauron, I think Ogre will agree with me when I say that our virtual date thread is for his initiation. It’s supposed to teach him how to flirt effectively. (I do what I can…I do what I can)
I BETTER see him flirting elsewhere on this board, or I’m not going my job as a mentor.
So, you just go right on ahead and use ‘soul mate’ if you like. I’d be honored if you considered me as that.
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Ooooph. Enough Perry. I like poopah’s comment on parched and brown. Makes you wonder what they were using to make that snowman…
When I was a kid the song Do You Hear What I Hear always gave me a case of [OwenMeany]THE SHIVERS[/OwenMeany]. I thought it so terrible that there was this dreary song about a child crying in the night, shivering in the cold, etc. I don’t know at what point in my life I slapped myself on the forehead and realised the child was Jesus (fer cryin’ out loud!) but I know I used to listen to the song in secret whenever I wanted to give myself the creeps, lol.
delphica
I would guess that you are thinking of a song by Ray Stevens that is not a holiday song. “Mama’s In The Sky With Elvis” on the “I Never Made A Record I Didn’t Like” collection.
I don’t know about dirge, but it is a song immersed in melancholy, and with good reason–it came out in the middle of World War II, and thousands of servicemen were indeed dreaming Of Christmases “just like the ones [they] used to know.” It’s a song about the the sights and sounds and memories of places and loved ones far distant (“with every Christmas card I write”). The repetition of white in the song acts as an agent of purity in a world immersed in blood, and the final wish “May your days be merry and bright” looks to the future for a better tomorrow, since there seemed to be no end in sight to the war being fought (this being 1942).
Just listen to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” two years later for a similar combination of nostalgia, melancholy, and hope–perfect for the period and still timeless today.
On a different point, my favorite genuinely depressing/disillusioned holiday piece is Jethro Tull’s “Christmas Song”
well, there are no carols like the minor key death and devastation carols. oh no, we are not talking about grandma got runned over by a reindeer.
we three kings of orient are:
myrrh is mine it’s bitter perfume, breathes a life of gathering gloom, sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying, seal’d in the stone cold tomb.
i got to sing that verse in a yolka in church when i was in single digits. this could explain a lot.
and the ultimate. the coventry carol. an actual lullaby carol. you know: lulay thou little tiny child, bye bye lu le lu lay…
third verse:
herod the king, in his raging, charged he hath this day, his men of might, in his own sight, all children young to slay.
these “modern” christmas songs can’t hold a candle to the “classics.” minor keys really stick in your brain so while people are humming jingle bells, i’m humming " what child is this":
nails, spear , shall pierce him through, the cross be bourne for me for you.
rocking chair
It’s worse when you learned the support for the main tune, and that’s what you want to sing at mass. The other’s around you are thinking what is he singing.
What perturbs me is when radio stations play Jesus Christ Superstar anywhere near Christmas… it should be played near Easter… on the flip side, Handel’s Messiah is Christmas-ee, and it disturbs me when it is played near Easter… (and our national broadcaster HAS done this before)
don’t know why I let it bother me, being an atheist and all, but it is damn sloppy
rocking chair: Those are my two all-time-tied-for-#1 favorite Christmas carols. Maybe it’s something sick in me, but the myrrh verse is probably one of my favorite musical things ever. There’s not enough dark stuff at Christmas, and I think we’re in desperate need of it.
poohpah chalupa: Listening to my brand-new copy of Rockapella Christmas (<plug>buy a copy! buy copies for friends and family!</plug>), I hear the lyric as:
Naming the snowman after a religious figure familiar to the two lovebirds of the song makes more sense in light of the marriage stuff that comes up in the next lines.
One thing that bugs me is a lot of times for ‘Silent Night’ people say ‘round young virgin’ instead of " 'round yon virgin".
They say, she’s young, she’s pregnant, so she’s round. But it is 'round, as in A-round. This bugs me. They will argue it into the ground, too.
Also, did any of you ever listen to the Ventures Christmas album? It is just the coolest. But, when I was little, the song ‘Scrooge’ scared me. The guitars make it sound evil.
What about Good King Wensceslaus or however the heck you spell it? Who is this guy? What is the feast of steven? If he’s a good king, why is this poor man out having to gather winter fuel? What happens during the rest of the song?
Also, I forgot to ask in another thread… but… what is a creche?
