24 December 2007

Christmas Music Preferences

I mentioned before that I needed a post about Christmas songs. I don't know that this will be the best post. After all, it is CHRISTMAS EVE!!!!

I love they hymns. Hands down, they are the best, primarily because they are about the real meaning of Christmas, the birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ. I particularly enjoy The First Noel, Silent Night, and the music from The Messiah (which was actually written for Easter, not Christmas!).

I enjoy many secular songs as well, especially the more sentimental ones like I'll be Home for Christmas, White Christmas and Let it Snow.

I also really like some of the fun ones like Sleigh Ride and Baby, It's Cold Outside.

I am not crazy about the silly songs and most of the Santa songs. I rather dislike Santa Clause is Coming to Town, All I want for Christmas (is my Two Front Teeth), I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer. I haven't always hated these songs. I enjoyed them as a child, in fact. But somewhere along the way the started to bother me. Perhaps because of all the pop renditions of them? I'm really not sure. Anyway, there you have it.

1 comment:

Greg_Cruey said...

Hi Sherry,

I think of myself as musically eclectic: Allman Brothers, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin, George Jones, Jackson Browne, Hank Jr., George Benson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Pat Green, Flatt & Scruggs, BB King. At the moment I'm listening to Appalachia Waltz (Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer, and Mark O'Conner) - A Christmas present from my wife...

I guess my eclectic taste carries over into Christmas music. I love the hymns. I particularly enjoy hearing a contemporary feel put to something Charles Wesley wrote. The idea that Wesley's words could still reach the masses seems somehow fitting at Christmas.

Among my favorites is a recording Al Green did of The First Noel. SHeDAISY has some good Christmas music - original and creative mix of the religious and the commercial. I like their vocal tightness.

I've always enjoyed songs that make the actual message more accessible, songs that get you to think about the meaning of Christmas. Trisha Yearwood's version of "It Wasn't His Child" is a good example.

I don't mind honky tonk sorts of Christmas music. Merle Haggard singing "If We Make It Through December" comes to mind. But the silly stuff makes me look for a new radio station. I have little patients for "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer." But that's just me...