For Your Listening Pleasure...

There is a popular radio station in Boston that starts playing exclusively Christmas (/holiday/winter) music the week before Thanksgiving and continues through Christmas Day.  That is the station where our car radio dial is tuned, and we look forward to the holiday music for a change.  We listen to Nostalgie 90.4 here in Paris, and they occasionally mix seasonal fare in with their normal (very strange) playlist, and, again, we enjoy the change of pace.  (Perhaps that's an understatement:  I love Christmas music!) 

A lot of people have strong opinions about Christmas music in general and specific songs in particular.  That may be due to the emotions and nostalgia tied to songs from one's youth.  Or religious objections to secularizing the holiday.  Or annoyance at the cultural hegemony.  But, actually, I think a lot of it is that some Christmas music is objectively very good but a large fraction of Christmas music is really quite terrible.  In other words, people may disagree on the mean quality, but everyone would agree on the high variance.  So guidance can be very helpful in separating the (winter) wheat from the chaff. 

Inspired by a graduate student friend of mine, Fred, I include here the 43 songs the I have on my "Christmas in Paris" playlist.  (Fred shared a highly-opinionated annotated list of the best Christmas songs on Facebook a couple of years ago.  He had clearly put a lot of thought into the list, but I am still salty about the complete absence of Ella Fitzgerald.). 

A few comments are called for.  First, I called the playlist Christmas in Paris even though we will not actually be in Paris on Christmas.  That kind of inconsistency does not bother me too much.  Second, I play this on shuffle, so do not read anything into the order in which these songs appear, other than the ease of finding them in my music library or on iTunes.  Third, some of them are clearly not Christmas songs.  The first, for instance, is New Year's Day by Taylor Swift.  But all are either winter-holiday-themed or winter-weather-themed.  And so they seem to happily live on the same playlist.  Fourth, you will see a decidedly pop- and jazz-inflected list.  No apologies.  Fifth, my list definitely skews secular.  Again, no apologies.  Six, some songs appear multiple times performed by different artists.  Sometimes a song is just quality enough to withstand multiple, excellent interpretations.  Seventh, Ella and her incomparable voice are well-represented.  Have a look before I make a few more specific comments. 

Two songs by Taylor Swift made it to the list, New Year's Day and 'Tis the Damn Season.  Both have lyrics evoking specific milieu effectively--one of TS's specialties--and both are freighted with melancholy and strong emotion.  They are both top-notch.  Dan Fogelberg's Same Old Lang Syne lives in the same niche. 

One song by the Jackson 5 is on the list, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. It's a somewhat silly song, but Michael Jackson's unique voice along with the inimitable Motown sound make this a true classic.

There is a version of the Christmas Waltz that I have heard and prefer to the one I included here.  I could not find it.  It's possible it was also a Nancy Wilson version, but just a different recording.  This one is similar, but just not quite as good as the one in my memory.  (I find Frank Sinatra's version a little too self-indulgent.)

I included Tony Bennett's I'll Be Home for Christmas for a similar reason.  His version is much preferable to the down-beat, saccharine renditions all over the internet, but I feel that I've heard one that is better still.

Thurl Ravenscroft does something remarkable and magical with the song about Mr. Grinch.  There are few songs in the popular canon sung in such a low register, but this really works.

I never get tired of Andy Williams' Happy Holidays/It's the Holiday Season.  "Hoopty-do and dickory-dock, don't forget to hang up your sock."  Wow, Christmas gold.

One controversial inclusion is Dean Martin's Baby, It's Cold Outside.  I like to think that the narrator just mixed a stiff drink as opposed to introducing any foreign substances in.  Still, problematic.  But what a fantastic tune.

Another controversial inclusion is Jingle Bells by Johnny Mercer.  It is essentially a commercial for Capitol Records, but I included it because 1) I love the New Orleans-style jazz vibe and 2) it makes me laugh.

A third controversial inclusion is Mistletoe by Justin Bieber.  I told Kate that I only included it because she liked it, but it is a bit of an earworm, to be honest.

A few pop songs are included, but Elton John's Step Into Christmas stands out as the best in my mind.  

Dave Letterman once said that Christmas by Darlene Love was the all-time greatest Christmas song.  I cannot disagree.  It is spectacular.  I also love Marshmallow World, and a couple of others of hers I included here.  We went to see her in concert (post-emancipation from Phil Spector) a few years ago.  She was, I believe, in her 70's at the time, and her voice and energy level were those a someone decades younger.  Again, spectacular.

Ok, happy listening, and have at it in the comments section!