"Don We, Now, Our Gay Apparel..."

[LargeMarge]

I would enjoy reading your experience with 'happy holidays' music:
* Is it as horridly-awful as I think?
* Worse?
* Are a few minutes on xmez eve enough to 'get you in the spirit'?
* Do you need weeks of the stuff, constant round-the-clock reminders?
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PS:
I think my favorite worst lyric is from McCartney and his WONDERFUL CHRISTMAS:
"The word is out
About the town
To lift a glass
Oh, and don't look down."
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Nominations are open.
Let's hear them, worst lyric in a holiday song...
I turn the forum over to you good people!
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PPS:
As we all would expect, the best 'happy holidays' song is by Cyndi Lauper and her CHRISTMAS CONGA:

 

[user 423]

Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer

(Dang. I don't remember Cyndi having legs like that)

 

[eDJ_]

I'd nominate "Blue Xmas to whom it may concern".

Miles Davis Sextet with Bob Dorough

It kinda sums up the crass over commercialization that burns the cheer & meaning out of the season for so many.

Youtube Video

Merry Xmas to whom it may concern

Lyrics to the song

Back in my school days there were all of these sidewalk Santa's standing by their green plywood booths with kerosene heaters and stereo's playing Xmas music thru loud speakers. As it happened the University was up the street a half mile and this group of Frat Boys volunteered to ring bells and pander for contributions. As it happened they brought their own Xmas music. Rock Albums to play on the stereo and none of it Xmas music. Can you imagine "Purple Haze" at Xmas ?

The result was that they collected more money for charity than the groups with more traditional approaches. It only happened that one year but people still talk about it in the town to this day. .

 

[jacqueg]

I'm a big fan of Mannheim Steamroller and the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Among other things, they mostly skip the words.

I OD'ed many years ago on the lyrics to The Little Drummer Boy. To this day, I avoid department stores during shopping season solely because of this one song!

 

[RvNaut]

Linus and Lucy -
Skating -

Vince Guaraldi

These songs were part of the sound track for the Peanuts Christmas Special in the 1960s. I value them because they represent an escape from the stress I associate with xmas.... they are also non-religious, which also suits my mind and mood... I watched a neat thing about the sound track...

 

[maki2]

My mother was the church organist as well as the director of the choirs including the children’s choir. So I was always around the classic Christmas music growing up.

I have no bad memories of Christmas music as those old classic carols are quite lovely and I still enjoy Christmas concerts.

I do not listen much to current pop music or current country music radio stations or videos so I have no opinion on what is playing on those venues.

 

[vanbrat]

I only like it between the day after Thanksgiving and the day of Christmas. I like lots of instrumental stuff. And only for a little while a day.... But I want to hear it every single day in season.

 

[bullfrog]

“White Christmas” by Bing Crosby but not because it was Christmas.

 

[skibumone]

I graduated in '92, ostensibly my first "adult" Christmas sans my familia's dysfunctional Discovery Bay Mele Kalikimaka.

I took a solo road trip to The Big Mountain (aka Whitefish Mtn Resort). I was driving an 81 AMC Jeep CJ with a soft top/doors, the heater fan could only keep the bottom 1/3 of the windshield defrosted. At some truck-stop/gas station an uncontrolled nostalgic predilection forced me to buy "A Very Special Christmas 2" cd that I played on a Sony Discman, which had to sit in my lap while I drove because the suspension in the CJ made it skip, but the foam covered earphones kept my ears warm.

Boyz II Men's "Birth of Christ" reminded me of a contemporary version of Handel's Baroque "For unto us a child is born" from the Messiah, and Sinatra's/Cyndi Lauper's "Satna Clause is Coming to Town" duet made Frank seem overtly more hip n cool than he actually was. But the track from Run-D.M.C. "Christmas Is" became my anthem on that long cold ass drive. A rejection of the traditional monetization of Christmas and a view through the socioeconomic lens that revealed my sheltered existence and the disproportionality of the American experience. "I'm from the ghetto, now this means I get no toys or presents beneath my tree...Give up the dough...That's how Christmas is supposed to be...Fight poverty...Open your pockets, your heart unlock it...and turn my mommy lights back on, word"

I miss the exuberance of youth...I had the world by the balls back then and was going to f'up the status quo.

Ultimately, I ended up getting sad n homesick on that trip, skiing without my older brother and his friends tormenting me made me a lazy/sloppy skier, and the thought of waking up on Christmas morning without my Mom and presents was less appealing in reality than I had imagined it to be. I ended up calling my mom collect at like 4AM Hawaii time on Christmas morning (in the before times without cell phones, I had to call my Grandma's condo, get her to accept the charges then wake up Mom...lol) I made a cassette play list (that didnt skip like cd's) for melancholy ski mornings away from home after that, Zeppelin's "Going to California", Joni Mitchell's "California", the Dead "Estimated Prophet (California)".

Even though I've been married (a few times) and owned (several) homes, once my parents passed away, specifically Mom, my concept of "home" was never the same. For me, home had more to do with who was there, than where it was located. Mom's favorite Christmas song was all two and one half hours of Handel's Messiah, I always felt just the penultimate outro Hallelujah chorus was sufficiently Christmas-ey.

Anyway, sorry for rambling, at least it was cathartic.

 

[RoamerRV428]

Like almost all of them. Definitely listen after my birthday on Dec. 7 then it is all I have on my car radio til Xmas day and GONE. But yea it puts me more in the mood but I can't too much of it So car drive and sing, enjoy....yea that is enough for this ol' gal. Favorite. Nah, I like a bunch of them alot. Love how the same song is done by different artists and tweaked by them. Keeps all the same ol' songs interesting. I do say tho Rudolph by Burl Ives is one of my favs and I like his voice alot. Drummed into my brain as a kid watching Rudolph and lovin it HAPPY HOLIDAYS ALL

 

[LargeMarge]

... Rudolph by Burl Ives is one of my favs and I like his voice...

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Sweet!
Burl Ives, great vocalist.
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You reminded me of Roger Whittaker and his DING DONG:

 

[LargeMarge]

...
Anyway, sorry for rambling, at least it was cathartic.

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People say I am a good listener.
Swing back by anytime.

 

[RoamerRV428]

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Sweet!
Burl Ives, great vocalist.
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You reminded me of Roger Whittaker and his DING DONG

Cool!! SO MANY greats forgotten. Into the abyss most of it goes time marches over all I guess! I still see Rudolph on tv tho. timeless one? hard to become timeless I guess in this fast paced world.

 

[eDJ_]

For the consideration of this thread:

Robert Earl Keene, "Merry Christmas from the Family".

Play It

 

[nature lover]

I’m a nut for the old crooner’s. The mellow voice of Bing Crosby is just so easy to listen to. I love to hear the words pronounced so that I can understand them.

I even like watching the movie, White Christmas, and then Holiday Inn because of his music. but then I grew up and hadn’t seen white Christmas for years, and I Went to a beautiful theater in Hershey PA to see it on the large screen again. And I cringed as the movie went on. I looked around for any person of color in the room, thinking if there were I’d crawl under the seat. They could probably change the name of that song to “white supremacist” Christmas. It doesn’t change the fact that his voice is beautiful, but I sure can’t enjoy the song white Christmas the way I used to.

 

[LargeMarge]

For the consideration of this thread:

Robert Earl Keene, "Merry Christmas from the Family".

Play It

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"Hallelujah, everybody say "Cheese""!

 

[mpruet]

Me - playing ‘The Most Wonderful Time of the Year’

 

[RoamerRV428]

Feliz Navidad

 

[user 22017]

Edit: Having trouble lately making some YT videos link. Trying again with Mariah Carey's O Holy Night

 

[Treknik]

Baby, It's Cold Outside?