[78-L] The Christmas Songs (was: Net privacy and integrity, was: The Christmas Songs)

[Michael Biel]

Martha wrote:
> > I see two subjects: "Songs Associated With Xmas" and "Songs About Xmas". 
> > There's no argument, far as I can see. 

From: David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>
> One thing we didn't discuss, in differentiating Carols and Tin Pan Alley
> songs, is folk material like "We Wish You A Merry Christmas" and "Wassail
> Song". Borderline carols but no mention of anything holy.

We need to go back to the original thread title.  I see the songs in
these categories

Religious Christmas Songs -- discuss Christ and/or other holy aspects:
        Oh Holy Night,  Silent Night, What Child Is This, Little Drummer
Boy, O Come All Ye Faithful

Secular Christmas Songs -- talk about home, presents, Santa, tree,
decorations:
        White Christmas, Home for the Holidays, Silver Bells, Rudolph, 
        It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, 
        Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, 

Winter Songs -- just talk about cold, snow, but not anything specific
about Christmas
        Winter Wonderland, Sleigh Ride, Let it Snow, Frosty the Snowman,

        Baby It's Cold Outside
        (One web site mentions that there were two specific recordings,
such as by The Carpenters, which changed a word in Mitchell Parish's
lyrics for Sleigh Ride.  They changed the word "birthday" to "Christmas"
in "There's a birthday party at the home of Farmer Gray".  If they had
to make this conscious effort to MAKE this a Christmas song, that shows
even more that it isn't.)


I might add, as a Jew growing up in a mixed community, it eventually
became mildly annoying that the annual Christmas concert in school did
not include any Hanukkah songs at all.  None.  Despite the fact that the
town was about 30% Jewish and eventually they had to include Rosh
Hashanah and Yom Kippur as school holidays because of the extreme amount
of absences.  But the concert every year did include what I felt was the
highlight of the season, one of my favorite songs despite it being
religious, Oh Holy Night.  From elementary school thru high school, the
soloist was always a girl who happened to be in my Temple's sunday
school class -- a nice, Jewish girl with the voice of an angel.   The
fact that she was Jewish was well known, and was even discussed as an
excuse for not having to include Hanukkah songs.  The other excuse was
like, "'Winter Wonderland' is not about Christmas, so that could be a
song for you."  So do you see why I feel so sensitive about
differentiating the categories?  

> > The South Park special gets played so much at my house that I now
> > associate "The Driedel Song" with Xmas ...  that doesn't make it
> > "A Christmas Song", but I still like to hear it every December.
> > Whatever it took to fill the Christmas LPs (even Mathis) since 
> > 1950 has become "Christmas Songs" to most of us.

> ps..I never heard the Dreidel Song until about five years ago. I think my 
> younger siblings may have learned it when they were kids..what's its story?
> dl (a red diaper baby who also never heard of CHANUKAH till the age of 10)

When Leah was in high school, she was the ONLY Jewish kid in the school
-- in the county, actually -- and the choir director wanted to include a
Hannukah song.  Instead of asking us what might be a good suggestion,
she went into some book or catalog and found a very obscure Israeli pop
song that had nothing to do with anything and used it.  That was good
enough for her.  It was not even something like Jerusalem of Gold that
was an Israeli pop song that was well known, or maybe something that The
Weavers had sung like Tsena Tsena Tsena, just some random song.  I would
have WELCOMED The Dreidel Song, but that episode of South Park had not
yet been aired!  And I think that South Park is the only exposure a lot
of Americans get to Judaism.   

Mike (i still haven't gone to see the Rockefeller Center Tree except on
Keith Olbermann) Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com