Before the Jack-o’-lantern on your front porch even had time to rot, Americans were already gearing up for Christmas. Christmas lights! Lawn decorations! Gap commercials! Thanksgiving is really just Christmas’ dress rehearsal. At my family’s Thanksgiving, we don’t get big name relatives like grandparents or aunts and uncles. We instead get their understudies: Godparents and friends of the family.*
Unlike a lot of America, there is a rule in my family that no Christmas music or decoration is allowed until the day after Thanksgiving. Therefore, on the last Friday of November, I go through all of my music in an attempt to put together the best Christmas Playlist possible. Here are selections from this year’s.
- Santa Claus Is Coming to Town by Bruce Springsteen – The Boss spends the first part of this song mumbling nonsense and then just starts talking to the band and the audience about whether or not they’ve been good this year, and whether they expect to find presents underneath their trees. He sounds a little drunk, but so enthusiastic, like a friendly little elf challenging Santa Claus to a pissing contest.
- John Denver & the Muppets – Alfie: The Christmas Tree/It’s in Every One Of Us – If the music of the citizens of Whoville made the Grinch’s heart grow three sizes, the Muppets and John Denver’s album A Christmas Together would have literally made his heart explode, causing an Avalanche that buried Whoville entirely.
- Baby It’s Cold Outside by Margaret Whiting and Johnny Mercer – This was my favorite Christmas song for a long time before I really listened to the lyrics. It’s a little weird at times, in the same way that I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus really just seems like a kid explaining why he will be needing many years of therapy as an adult. While I still love it, and I know it’s harmless, doesn’t it kind of come off like Johnny Mercer is drugging Margaret Whiting when he won’t let her leave and finally she questions “say, what’s in this drink?” The tune is whimsical and fun to dance to, but by the end you kind of want to shake Johnny Mercer and tell him that no means no.
- O Come All Ye Faithful by Florence Henderson – From the 1988 Special – A Very Brady Christmas. Mike Brady (who at this point looks like Charles Bronson in Death Wish) gets stuck in a collapsing building. Who saves him? Florence fucking Henderson. How does she do it? With the power of song. THE POWER OF HER VOICE LITERALLY GIVES MIKE BRADY THE STRENGTH TO EMERGE FROM THE CONCRETE RUBBLE AND HELP DELIVER THE CHRISTMAS MESSAGE OF BUILDING STRUCTURALLY SOUND REAL ESTATE. Watch the whole special if you like (it’s all on youtube), but forward to about the 5:35 mark in the below to see FloHo rock the mic and save Christmas from tragedy.
- Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis by Tom Waits – Okay so not every Christmas song features Florence Henderson saving lives. Some of them are by Tom Waits and they’re really fucking depressing. The below song is a letter sent to Waits by, well a hooker in Minneapolis, who basically spends the first three quarters of the song lying about her life before finally coming clean and admitting that she needs to borrow money. There’s something oddly comforting about the tune though. Sometimes Christmas is less about festive songs and egg nog and more about slow, sad songs and whiskey and cigarettes.
Anyway, those are five of my favorites. Please feel free to share some of your favorite holiday songs/Florence Henderson fantasies.
Happy Holidays!
* This is actually preferable to me. Who wouldn’t love to see the part of Philip Seymour Hoffman played by Andy Richter?
Andrew, I love that you put together a list of your favorite holiday songs. Every conversation I’ve had about this particular brand of pop-torture is based on figuring out which are the five worst — the real task for me is boiling it down to just five.
But I do have one special song that I associate with Christmas: “The Sound of Silence.” We didn’t own any Christmas records in the Godfree household, so my folks were fond of spinning their Simon and Garfunkel records on Christmas eve as we all laid on our backs mesmerized by the tree’s lights bouncing around on the living room ceiling. And the dust on the record always gave off the perfect faux-fireplace crackle.
First of all, Andrew, YOU MUST READ THIS POST!! :http://www.greatwhatsit.com/archives/2002. One of my favorite comments threads of all time! Everyone was gettin’ their theory on!
And yes, Scotty and I have an annual tradition of listing our five most dreaded, rather than most loved, Christmas songs, and I regret to inform you that that Bruce Springsteen song is on my list (sorry to be such a hater). Paul McCartney is also near the top (but John Lennon with yesterday’s post’s title is perfectly welcome in my headphones, as are Bowie and Bing–go ahead, other haters, bring it on). I am also quite a fan of the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”
Finally, you simply must be commended for what I believe is, unbelievably, the first introduction of Florence Henderson onto TGW. That special is a classic. And calling her Floho! What a delicious Friday surprise.
Best/worst, it’s kind of all the same for a holiday that embraces shmaltz as much as Christmas. Do I think the movie White Christmas is a good movie? No. Do I love watching Vera Ellen and Danny Kay dance around once a year and sing stupid songs? I do.
The Sound of Silence would be a nice Christmas song. Funny thing is, my dad is so obsessed with Simon and Garfunkel that playing Christmas music was the only break we got from that song all year.
Oh wow, didn’t realize that was already a topic discussed at TGW. I need to do some archive research! That’s a great post. You might be interested in this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hEJQbEYjRg) in which the gender roles are reversed. It’s funny, if they acted it out in this way with the original gender roles, it would definitely look like Rainn Wilson was violently forcing Selma Blair to stay, and totally trying to slip her a mickey. But because they switch them up, it’s supposed to be cute that Selma Blair won’t let him leave.
I agree on John Lennon and the Pogues. The Bowie and Bing collaboration doesn’t even have to be a good song. The mere fact that those two decided to do a duet it amazing enough. It’s like watching a unicorn and a pterodactyl mate.
OK. Here are five Christmas songs that I would like to put on a permanent loop throughout the holidays:
Little Drummer Boy, performed by a children’s choir (preferably from some renowned inner-city music program).
Twelve Days of Christmas, performed by an elite prep-school children’s choir (to make it believable).
Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer (everyone loves sing-a-longs!).
El-Shaddai, by Amy Grant.
Feliz Navidad, the dual language version.
The fascinating thing for me is that this list runs such a gamut of Christmas commentary and sentiments: starting with the tough-guy commercial posturing of The Boss, ambling gently through the innocent eco-friendliness of John Denver and The Muppets, detouring into the campy sophisticated date-rape-y, bursting into the over-the-top schmaltz of The Brady Family, and landing with a resounding thump in the hopelessness of a poverty-stricken run-down studio apartment of a hooker. Wow. I’d like to get a look at your record collection.
Here are a few of my favorite Christmas records: John Fahey’s “Guitar Soli” records, Odetta’s “Christmas Spirituals,” and Joan Baez’s “Noel.” There are others — including Dust-to-Digital’s awesome compilation, “Where Will You Be Christmas Day?”, Prince’s “Another Lonely Christmas,” Leroy Carr’s great “Christmas in Jail, Ain’t in a Pain?” and more — but those three LPs truly make Christmas for me.
P.S. That’s a replacement Cindy in the Brady Christmas special, right?
It’s totally a replacement Cindy. Susan Olsen was way too kewl by then. LIke she’s gonna debase herself by appearing in that? I’m so sure! There are drugs to take, and local radio shows on which to barf on air cause she’s so hung over. No more squaresville CIndyness for her!