Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Music that Encourages Debt

From a commercial point of view, if Christmas did not exist it would be necessary to invent it.
Katharine Whitehorn, journalist

As I get into the Christmas spirit, I have assembled all our holiday songs onto the iPod. It’s rather convenient to start from the top with Ray Davies’ “Thanksgiving Day” or play straight through from Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Diana Krall, Vince Guaraldi, Jane Monheit, Kenny G, Wynton Marsalis, The Tonight Show Band with Doc Severson, Jethro Tull to the one off specialties from "A Very Special Christmas" that features, Bruce Springsteen, Eurythmics, Stevie Nicks, Madonna, Bryan Adams, Bob Seger or more one-offs from Mick Jagger and Joss Stone, The Kinks, and John Lennon. Thankfully the iPod allows shuffling to mix it all up.

It sounds good until I start to realize that while I have 150 songs and 8.7 hours of melodious holiday music that I also have to wade through roughly:

6 Winter Wonderlands
5 White Christmases
4 Sleighrides
2 Silverbells
6 Silent Nights
4 Santa Claus is Coming to Towns
2 Come all ye Faithful
4 The Little Drummer Boys
4 Let it Snows
5 Jingle Bells
3 I’ll Be Home for Christmases
7 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmases
4 Hark the Herald Angels Sings
3 Greensleeves
7 The Christmas Songs

Something interesting I noticed is that there are different titles to the same song. “The Little Drummer Boy” is also called “Little Drummer Boy,” “We Three Kings” also has a “We Five Kings” sibling.” Then there is a “Merry Christmas Baby” and “Merry Christmas Darling.”

Okay, I’ll admit that I actually like some of it for a little while, but soon I long for regular music because all these holiday tunes make the season seem like something from “Leave it to Beaver” or “Ozzie And Harriet” when really it’s just music that encourages over spending and debt.

Christmas, Ba humbug!

4 comments:

sporksforall said...

Greensleeves and a few others I can do over and over. But the ubiquitous ones, that blast at me from every Target orifice do not belong on my ipod.

Jack Steiner said...

You could change that headline to "Music that Encourages Death."

Sorry, some of the holiday music wears on me. Doesn't matter what, it just gets overplayed.

The Misanthrope said...

Hi Sporks, my iPod doubles as the house stereo too. However, I have transferred all the holiday music to another iPod and I hope to get other music I am not crazy about off of mine, but I have plenty of room still.

Hi Jack, I think that music could play that roll.

Jack Steiner said...

Hi Jack

If we ever run into each other on a plane remember not to say Hi and my name in the same sentence. ;)