Wrapped in metal, wrapped in ivy

[sovay]

Driving around on errands, I seem to have discovered that my tolerance for Christmas music has zeroed out unless it falls into the class of traditional carols, i.e. can be used for wassailing, first appeared in Latin, was arranged once by Benjamin Britten. I relayed this sentiment to spatch and he promptly broke out SNL's "I Wish It Was Christmas Today." When we saw the news of the death of Dave Mallett, I played him my favorite version of the "Garden Song," from Arlo Guthrie and Pete Seeger's Precious Friend (1981). I remain entertained that the official website of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had to put up a short post attesting to the historical reality of the Massachusetts Bay Colony's Penalty for Keeping Christmas 1659. The catchiest music I have heard on the radio lately—WHRB, natch—is almost certainly Auntie Christ's "I Don't" (1997). I am all for amending our still-critical drought, but these 100% chances of rain could be snow any time now.

Comments

[mrissa]

Hurrah, another Precious Friend fan. One of my college friends had that on tape and a very elderly car with a tape deck, and our whole crowd imprinted hard.

[sovay]

Hurrah, another Precious Friend fan. One of my college friends had that on tape and a very elderly car with a tape deck, and our whole crowd imprinted hard.

That makes me very happy to hear. It lived on cassette in the cars of my childhood and we would listen to it when driving back and forth from my grandparents in Maine, as well as randomly around town.

[asakiyume]

With you on the Christmas music!

[sovay]

With you on the Christmas music!

"Fairytale of New York" is an outlier of a good song and should not be counted.

[asakiyume]

I will give a pass to anything you give a pass to!

[sovay]

I will give a pass to anything you give a pass to!

I just realized I should have included it in my list of exceptions, since it was recorded in 1987 and remains a classic. spatch and I sang it our first solstice together. Accidentally, but it seemed to suit.

[luzula]

May I recommend this album which is Swedish Christmas music from the folk tradition? A lot of it is wassailing music that combines the story of St Stephen (Staffan in Swedish) with things like "if you don't give us liquor we'll set fire to your barn".

[sovay]

May I recommend this album which is Swedish Christmas music from the folk tradition? A lot of it is wassailing music that combines the story of St Stephen (Staffan in Swedish) with things like "if you don't give us liquor we'll set fire to your barn".

YouTube tells me the video is not available, which is probably some kind of region-lock, but Folk och Rackare were great! I will see if I can find their Christmas album.

[luzula]

Hmm, well, the Christmas album is called "Stjärnhästen", so try searching for that.

[selkie]

Unexpectedly positive feature of running a synagogue: never ever Christmas music.

[sovay]

Unexpectedly positive feature of running a synagogue: never ever Christmas music.

Even alternative stations play it! It's just on the radio!

[selkie]

The grimmest part of my marriage is the driver/shotgun/cake hole maxim, which means from the day after Thanksgiving it's 97.1 ALL FUCKEN CHRISTMAS!!!! radio in the Blubaru. (I am fine with shapenote carols, wassail songs, things in Latin, and Handel's Messiah as long as I can attempt the soprano part, which turns each movement into a pact of mutually assured destruction!)

[sovay]

(I am fine with shapenote carols, wassail songs, things in Latin, and Handel's Messiah as long as I can attempt the soprano part, which turns each movement into a pact of mutually assured destruction!)

I haven't actually heard the complete Messiah in ages. The last time was when we sang it at Brandeis.

[selkie]

IMO it needs full organ and one (1) fat contralto goin' for that A4, on the highway. Anybody who thinks I can't support and be a passenger princess is wrong!
Edit: we could have a singalong.

[sovay]

Edit: we could have a singalong.

Your spouse is supposed to keep speaking to me!

[selkie]

Yes but, yes but, hear me out, you actually could get to the A4. And if you wanted to have a proper car Messiah I would sit in the back with Eli and sing *checks* yeah probably the fiddly contralto part.

[ethelmay]

My son was in a boychoir, and we went to a Messiah singalong when his voice was starting to change. He and I got adjacent seats on the edges of the soprano and alto sections (I had sung [chorus, not solo] alto in the Messiah many years previously; he had only sung the Hallelujah Chorus). During the warm-up he went all the way up with the sopranos and most of the way down with the basses. Then he sight-sang right through. It was such fun.

[selkie]

What a fun memory, indeed! Also, I am impressed by a young person with the mastery to sight-sing Baroque stuff.
Our son's voice is revamping into a baritone by way of a high-speed run over a suspension bridge with a lot of expansion links in it, at the moment, and he is... an accompanist and not a singer, bless, but he does *like* to sing.

[ethelmay]

I think he was doing a fair amount of instant-echo of the women around him, and he had probably heard some of it before. But I was still impressed. These days (he's 26) he does shape-note but not much other music.

[theseatheseatheopensea]

I seem to have discovered that my tolerance for Christmas music has zeroed out unless it falls into the class of traditional carols, i.e. can be used for wassailing, first appeared in Latin, was arranged once by Benjamin Britten.

Relatable! My own categories are: songs my grandmother liked, songs that make fun of the hypocritical side of the holidays, and obviously Tom Waits and The Pogues. (And "Last Christmas", because it's a fun game!)

[sovay]

My own categories are: songs my grandmother liked, songs that make fun of the hypocritical side of the holidays, and obviously Tom Waits and The Pogues.

I remembered the Pogues in comments, but Tom Waits is also a legitimate exception!

What falls into the category of songs your grandmother liked?

(And "Last Christmas", because it's a fun game!)

I have never heard it! I don't know how I would even recognize if it happened to me!

[selkie]

"Last Christmas" is the sassy gay Anubis carol. "Last Christmas I gave you my heart, and the very next day you gave it a weigh."

[sovay]

"Last Christmas" is the sassy gay Anubis carol. "Last Christmas I gave you my heart, and the very next day you gave it a weigh."

Truly this rings no literal or figurative bells, but when we get the carolling Ammit, I'm calling you.

[selkie]

She gets a verse, too! Once bitten, twice shy!
...so that's six large sushi boats, two fruit trays, two cookie trays, and a raw beef heart.

[ethelmay]

"Dammit, Ammit!"

[theseatheseatheopensea]

What falls into the category of songs your grandmother liked?

Mostly these. During the holidays, she used them as lullabies too!

I have never heard it! I don't know how I would even recognize if it happened to me!

Haha, then this means that you automatically win the game every year! The "tradition" is that you lose the second you hear and recognise the song. After you lose, you can keep playing by adding a point each time you hear it! (This year it was nominated for Yuletide, which I find delightful!

[thomasyan]

Have you heard of, I think it's called, manualism? Where you make differently pitched farting sounds with your hands to perform tunes? I think my inner kid would get a kick out of hearing many different tunes performed that way, including Pachelbel's Canon and "Hymne", the catchy jingle for Gallo Wine many years ago, and also the Star Wars theme.

Here's a rendition of aha's Take On Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwxvOKuLUQ0

[sovay]

Have you heard of, I think it's called, manualism? Where you make differently pitched farting sounds with your hands to perform tunes?

I've never heard anyone use it to cover a-ha!

(I am fascinated that if done tunefully instead of by adolescents who want to make fart noises, it sounds a lot more like someone imitating a kazoo.)

[gwynnega]

My two favorite Christmas songs are seventies glitter anthems: Wizzard's "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" and Slade's "Merry Xmas Everybody," but I also like the Phil Spector and Ella Fitzgerald Christmas albums, and Al Green's version of "O Holy Night." I haven't heard any of these yet this season, so I'll probably just end up playing them myself!

[sovay]

I haven't heard any of these yet this season, so I'll probably just end up playing them myself!

You should definitely program the stations around here.

[swan_tower]

unless it falls into the class of traditional carols, i.e. can be used for wassailing, first appeared in Latin, was arranged once by Benjamin Britten

Hey, I finally have a way to describe my taste in Christmas music!

(Special exception made for "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.")

[sovay]

Hey, I finally have a way to describe my taste in Christmas music!

Feel free to share and disseminate!

(Special exception made for "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.")

(Good point. Thurl Ravenscroft is a culture hero.)

[choco_frosh]

Joining the chorus on the Christmas music thing! I mean, I obviously don't have the this is not my religion and so I wish they wouldn't blare it at me constantly that some of my friends have, but ARGHHHHH.

(This is part of why I started a Winter Songs collection.)

"Last Christmas" may be more of a British thing?

[sovay]

Joining the chorus on the Christmas music thing! I mean, I obviously don't have the this is not my religion and so I wish they wouldn't blare it at me constantly that some of my friends have, but ARGHHHHH.

Still valid and sympathized with!

(Does the fact that it is your religion make it better, worse, or neutral?)

(This is part of why I started a Winter Songs collection.)

Is there another part, or just liking winter songs? Off the top of my head, I would contribute Gordon Bok's "Turning Toward the Morning," Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane's "Year-Long Winter," and Dave Goulder's "Boy in Winter," which may not be at all the sort of thing you were looking for.

"Last Christmas" may be more of a British thing?

It seems to exist in enough countries that my godchild's family got whammied with it at the start of this month. I've chalked it up to the thing where I can miss an amazing amount of pop culture if I don't go looking for it.

[rushthatspeaks]

I would like to put in a good word here for Sufjan Stevens' Christmas music, which comes in two categories: one, traditional etc. as you have summed up, and he's very good at it; and two, things like 'Did I Make You Cry On Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!)', 'Get Thee Behind Me, Santa', and 'Christmas Unicorn', which contains the entirety of Joy Division's original rendition of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'.

[sovay]

one, traditional etc. as you have summed up, and he's very good at it; and two, things like 'Did I Make You Cry On Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It!)', 'Get Thee Behind Me, Santa', and 'Christmas Unicorn', which contains the entirety of Joy Division's original rendition of 'Love Will Tear Us Apart'.

That does sound extremely impressive.

(I am inevitably reminded of Schmekel's "I'm Sorry, It's Yom Kippur.")