I'm not a religious person, but Christmas is significant to me. I don't accept the proclamations of any established religion, but I'm grateful that enough people follow such an ideally giving and forgiving belief system that I can enjoy an entire month of shared goodwill.
I'm also grateful for the music that helps enhance that feeling and that experience for me.
However, I have a seething hatred that "burns with the intensity of a thousand suns" for music that desecrates and violates the aura that surrounds the sacred month.
Christmas music is borderline worthless these days.
I imagine there was a time when festive seasonal music had a "cheering" effect on its listeners. I bet it put people in the mood to help their fellow man and woman, to celebrate the birth of the Christian savior with good tidings that went beyond a month another obligatory exchange of pleasantries.
"Merry Christmas" is hollow. You've meant it once, maybe thrice in your life. But I digress.
There are about, five good Christmas songs. The rest are covers by yesteryear's pop or country "it" artist. Prepare yourself for Toby Keith, the infamous angry American, to release his version of "Santa Baby."
It's all about wholesome once December rolls around. The same people who were trying to put the spark back in their relationship watching "Desperate Housewives" in November insist on virginity on the part of their major label caroler this time of year.
That's why Britney Spears hasn't released a new Christmas album this year. Black eyeliner is one thing, but two shotgun weddings inside a calendar year will just ruin a wholesome image.
So when you're shopping for just the right thing for people you care about, and just about anything for the people you don't, keep an ear perked to the intercom for the classics. You remember them. They're the ones that can really move you to drop your spare change into the Salvation Army Santa's red tin pot.
Frank Sinatra's version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is the kind of song I'm talking about. I could be in one of those awe-inspiringly long Best Buy lines with a complaint-savvy senior with an itchy foot two places to my posterior, just close enough that I could hear the complaining, just far enough that I couldn't do anything about it, but Old Blue Eyes has the golden tones to bring me to sweep the skin sack right off her itchy feet.
Who can picture Nick Lachey having that kind of impact on a hostile holiday shopper? Let's examine that situation again, substituting Lachey for Sinatra. Actually, let's not. Suffice it to say, it would make my day worse.
"All I Want for Christmas Is You," by Mariah Carey, only raises stress levels. The fact that Spears covered the song a couple years later only reveals further that the two are kindred spirits. The breast implant rumors and schizoid, complete mental breakdown/lapses in marital judgment parallel one another chronologically. Spears is Carey, two years later.
"The Carol of the Bells" on the other hand, does more than make me want to hug old ladies and babies. It served to grant young Macauley Culkin the courage to destroy Joe Pesci's facial bone structure in "Home Alone." In sincerity, it's a moving song, despite the fact that nowhere in its structure or content is there any reference to the birth of Jesus. It's just about the atmosphere of Christmas, which is a wonderful thing. It encapsulates my sentiments surrounding the glorious holiday.
There's a mystique to Christmas that transcends gift giving and materialism. Songs that attempt to capture this are invaluable. I can only hope some contemporary musicians will share my feelings and renew my hope this season.
