Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Christmas Music

I was being slowly driven nuts by a Time Warner Christmas commercial with a very catchy song (that I actually like) whose lyrics made no sense. Each time it came on, I'd try to understand the words, and I could only get the first and last line. Enter the Internet, and the answer is just a Google away. In case you have this commercial where you live, here are the words. You can see why I was hung up on middle lines. I thought "phase" was "face" -- and I thought "coming dear" was "commandeer."

It comes along just once a year,



on Winters wings - Decembers rear,


ahh-ahh humbug phase is coming dear,


and then appears a perfect Christmas time.

While googling this, I came upon a list of top 100 Christmas songs and saw, of course, a bunch of favorites so let's play a game. What's your favorite and least favorite Christmas song? And why?

Here are mine:

Most Favorite: O Holy Night

This song makes me wish I could sing. In my next life, I'll be doing the solo at some beautiful church on Christmas Eve and make people weep with the beauty of my voice. (That will be strange if my next life finds me as a Hindu living in Mumbai.) Back in 1971 when I was teaching high school, I had a few favorite students. One was this young man named Robin. He was this big, beefy guy with a feminine name. After I left teaching, and really missed it, I was getting dressed for my office job at Christmas time and the radio station was featuring some local high school students singing and the one that morning was this kid Robin singing O Holy Night and he sang it so beautifully that the song always makes me sentimental for that time in my life.

Least Favorite: Little Drummer Boy

I think I liked this song the first 342 times I heard it when I was 10 years old. These days, it's a song that can make me lunge for the radio to turn off. Ba-rum-buh-dump-dum!

And you?

8 comments:

Mary Mc said...

Hmmm I like a lot of Christmas music. My favorite carol is the First Noel- I love to hear it and I love to sing it. I always give Judy (my sister) a hard time when I'm at her church for Christmas Eve and they never sing it. Sometimes it's part of the processional or recessional music. I also love I'll be Home for Christmas. What I don't like -- I'm with you on Little Drummer Boy, for the same reasons. I also don't like Grandma Got Run over by a Reindeer. But the worst one for me is the Christmas Shoes sung by a little boy whose mother is dying.....and I read that they made a movie out of it. Ugh

Mary Mc said...

Now I'm mad at you!! I can't get that stupid shoes song out of my head!!

Pat said...

That's funny because I'm mad at you for "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" in my mind.

Melissa said...

If you've never seen the Celine dion You Tube video (I think its from 2006) singing O Holy Night, it is amazing! I think that's the voice I want i. My next life. That's my favorite too, and I'm with Mary on the grandma getting run over by a reindeer as my least fav. Rocking around the Christmas Tree is also not one of my favorites... I some how don't like the visual of rocking out :).

Mordechai said...

Before you disrespect "Little Drummer Boy"... watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_BRd1fegBw (or search "little Drummer Boy West Wing" on Youtube...
and then tell me you don't remember that it's as powerful as in 4th grade.
Period.

Mordechai said...

and as far as the best O-Holy night...
http://bit.ly/tz1x1n

Anonymous said...

Who sings that time-Warner song??

Unknown said...

Apparently the song is something like "Tiny Christmas Tree" by Guster.