I Want to Know…
… what is your favorite Christmas carol?
I’m feeling very Christmasy today (probably because the view out my window would be a great establishing shot for a Christmas-related romantic comedy). (…Why romantic comedy? Probably because my iPhone is currently playing “Baby it’s Cold Outside.”) (…No, not one of the new lame versions, Dean Martin!)
… anyway!
I don’t think I could pick just one. I’d have to select one of each kind. I mean, first, you have to have the best choral one. That would be “The Holy and the Ivy.” The companion to that would be the best solo one - “O Holy Night” - which I do not have a good recording of. Most people who sing it do it wrong! And then, then you ‘d have to have the best sad Christmas song, which is obviously “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.” (The new Josh Groban recording I just bought off iTunes last night almost made me cry on the train this morning… and relating to the previous song, yes, even his version is wrong.) But you’d also have to have the companion best happy Christmas song, which is less obvious. I think I’d probably go with “Jingle Bells” here - the Barbara Streisand version. It’s fun! Oh, and then you’d have to have the best instrumental one, which I think most people would agree would have to be “Sleigh Ride.” (I like to imagine the percussionists drawing straws - the short straw gets to play the jingle bells for that song.) Yes, I know it has words (I even have a recording of it by the Ronettes), but who cares - the instrumental version is better.
Man… I love Christmas music. It lets you enjoy things you don’t normally listen to. You couldn’t catch me dead listening to Jimmy Buffet on a regular day. But who can let Christmas happen without at least one listening of “Mele Kalikimaka”? The only Barbara Streisand I have is for Christmas. Ditto for the Beach Boys.
But if you held my arm, and twisted it, and made me pick just one…
… I’m almost thinking I’d let you take my arm…
… but I need that for things like playing the guitar and playing the plastic guitar and, you know, work ‘n’ stuff…
… so if I could only have one…
… “Silent Night.”
Kate said:
Obviously the best Christmas song is Holly Jolly Christmas… did you know that there is a courty version of this song!?! I hear it on the radio station that has been playing non-stop Christmas music since November 1st!! Although on some levels it disturbs me that somebody countrified(?) Holly Jolly Christmas I still kind of like it!
Joe said:
“Carol of the Bells” is one of my favorites. I also love the Perry Como versions of most songs along with Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. I know I’m probably 50 years out of step with that, but hey, it’s what I learned to love by spending Christmas at my grandparents’ house.
Jo Ann said:
Mary Did You Know? by a couple of girls at ECHS (c) 1998,
and The Christmas Song, by Mel Torme (c) 1946 (I looked it up)
dinane said:
Kate - I knew that! Not the country thing. But I knew what your favorite song was. Every time my Burl Ives version comes on my iPhone I think of you.
Joe - I totally have the entire Christmas with the Rat Pack album on my iPhone! And it is awesome! I especially like “Marshmallow World.”
Mom! You figured out how to respond :) You do know that someone else wrote that song. Uh… If I think about it I might remember. I totally do have “The Christmas Song,” but I don’t have Mel Torme singing it. Probably it’s on that Rat Pack album. I’m not sure.
… I had to look it up. “Mary Did You Know?” has apparently been recorded by every country artist ever. The version we dissected with bad wav-editing software in high school was recorded by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Rogers. Katy and I sang it at school, but two other people sang it at church. Along with that badly edited wav.
sj-stefunnyo said:
I looove Johnny Mathis’s Christmas albums. My favorite songs of his are probably “Sleigh Ride”, “Carol of the Bells”, and “Do you Hear what I Hear”. I also love Elvis’s “Blue Christmas” and all of the Charlie Brown Christmas album, of course.
dinane said:
Oh yes! “Blue Christmas” is definitely a good one. I only have one song from the Charlie Brown Christmas album. Recently, I was confused as to why, but I still didn’t buy the rest of the album…