Inspired by the thread about the Peanuts theme “Linus and Lucy”.
I divide “Christmas music” into three catagories: 1) religious, B) secular, and III) seasonal. Let me explain more.
Religious would be songs about the birth of Jesus. “Silent Night”, “O Holy Night”, "Adeste Fideles, etc. Even lighter fare like “Little Drummer Boy”, as they’re about the first Christmas.
B. Secular songs would be the ones about Santa, reindeer with glowing noses, snowmen coming to life, coming home for Christmas, decking halls with holly boughs, and how good your baby was to you.
III. Seasonal songs are more just winter songs. Winter wonderlands, Julie Andrew’s favorite things, sleighrides and that sort of thing.
Though I’m not certain how solid the line is between B and III. I think Charles Brown’s “Please come home for Christmas” could be a III, not B. There are others.
Heh. I just posted in the thread about definitive versions of Christmas songs:
That’d be your third category, seasonal songs, into which I’d place all songs that are about winter, snow, etc. There’s no inherent reason these songs couldn’t be played throughout January or February, except maybe that everyone’s sick and tired of winter by then. This category includes Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, Frosty the Snowman, Let It Snow, Baby It’s Cold Outside, Sleigh Ride…
I’d add one more category, though I mostly wish they would just go away: Whiny pop songs about faithless lovers or being lonely at Christmas (e.g., “Last Christmas” “All I want for Christmas is you”, etc.) We have those songs ad nauseum all the rest of the year; they can take a rest during the holidays. In any case, throwing the word “Christmas” into your song at random doesn’t make it a Christmas song.
cher, those are the ones that I think border between secular and seasonal. The songs that really aren’t about Christmas but do mention the celebration. Frankly, the LAST song I wanted to hear Armed Forces Radio pump out was “I’ll be home for Christmas” while on alert in a fighting hole behind an M-60 dining on Ham and Lima Beans c-rats.
Though I blame Norman Rockwell for a lot of that sort of crap but that’s another issue.
Yes, yes, yes! Those songs make me crazy when they get played on the Christmas music formats. To me, the two biggest violators are Wham’s “Last Christmas” (which you mentioned), and Dan Fogelberg’s “Another Auld Lang Syne”.
What about songs that are about a specific holiday other than Christmas, like Auld Lang Syne or Deck the Halls?
And then there’s songs that don’t actually have anything at all to do with Christmas or the season, but which end up on Christmas playlists anyway, like Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring, Pachabel’s Canon, or Handel’s Hallelujah.
Between religious and secular I have a category of “legendary”, songs that have Jesus or Mary or Herod as the subject but are not canonical. For example:
The Cherry Tree Carol
The Little Drummer Boy
Herod and the Cock
By the time Christmas actually arrives I have begun to hate it because of the habit of advertisers to put their sales pitch to the tune of traditional Christmas songs. I could go on a long tirade about the commercialization of the season but this isn’t the thread for that.
By the way “Marry Christmas From The Family” by Robert Earl Keen is the best Christmas song in case you were wondering.
Joni Mitchell’s River is only set at Christmastime, and I assume it’s about breaking up with Graham Nash, as part of the suite of songs about the most documented relationship between two songwriters ever.
Christmas songs that are over played on the radio during the season:
Burl Ives singing “It’s a Holly Jolly Christmas”
Bobbly Helms singing “Jingle Bell Rock”
Brenda Lee singing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree”
Eartha Kit Singing “Santa Baby”
Slight hijack: some years ago, I was listening to a radio interview with Randy Newman.
He said, “Irving Berlin was the greatest Jew since Moses! He took the two biggest Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter, and wrote songs about them. The first was a weather report and the second was a fashion show!”
That would be “White Christmas” and “Easter Bonnet,” by the way.
“God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ, our Savior, was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan’s pow’r when we had gone astray
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy
Oh, tidings of comfort and joy.”
Pretty explicitly Christian, I think you’d have to say.
