WBTV-LP

Noël" N°1725 by Marcel Rieder, 1898. Image source

There is a long history to Christmas music and many of our favorites reach back decades, if not hundreds of years, which also means there is a wealth of Christmas songs to choose from. I tend to consider them in four groups and these do have overlap and I believe mix with varying degrees of success across their different combinations. For that reason I have gone with a mix of types with a specific sound for the heart of this episode, one I hope the title and image I chose for it suggests. The types include:

I. Traditional Christmas and Carols: These are the ones that primarily were written in the 19th century and earlier and often feature religious lyrics, or simply the ones you are most likely to hear sung by choirs and in church. Examples include O Holy Night, The First Noel and The Holly and the Ivy.

II. Classic Christmas: These are the ones sung by crooners, vocalists and appear in many of our favorite Christmas specials of the 20th century, hitting a stride in the 1940's before petering out around the 1960's. The lyrics focus on family, togetherness, romance, winter activities, naïve consumerism and Christmas lore and they often generate an absolute positive warmth even if the whole song is just in the imagination of the narrator. Examples: White Christmas, The Christmas Song and Silver Bells.

III. Pop Christmas: These begin emerging as Classic Christmas dies off. They are less tied together by theme, subject matter and feeling as they are by instrumentation and genre. Soul and rock are on the rise and free to explore old and new Christmas themes without the constraints of having to appeal to the whole family. Some of the songs are disillusioned and lack the sincerity of their predecessors, while others are just exploring the new styles and new technologies available to them, taking Christmas songs to new heights when it comes to being cool or rocking and eventually hip hop and new wave come along and are able to take their shot at the holidays as well. Examples: Christmas, Baby Please Come Home, Father Christmas and Christmas In Hollis.

IV: Novelty: This category transcends time and is comprised of any crazy thing you want that can vaguely be tied to Christmas. I'm not sure what was the first song to take this cherish holiday and tie it to comedy was but Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was written in 1939 and that seems to be one of the earliest. Sometimes clever and funny, sometimes unnecessary and grotesque, novelty Christmas has it all. They can be innocent- they can be cynical, they can be for children- they can say words not allowed on the radio and they can be Classic Christmas songs- they can be Pop Christmas songs although rarely Traditional Christmas songs. Examples: I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas, Snoopy's Christmas and an exhausting list of The Twelve (insert joke here) of Christmases.

I, like many, get joy from a little bit of each type. This year I decided on a majority of Classic Christmas with threads of the other types woven in. I start with Traditional, give a dose of Pop and then head in for Classic. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed sourcing it for you and it brings you a little bit of warmth in this cold winter.

I imagine with 2020 being so odd and frankly catastrophic there will be many musicians from type IV that can't help but make a song about it. I don't have a lot of faith in this. But maybe we deserve better, I put forth that we already have a song that captures the mood and circumstance of this year's holiday season already, one that was written during World War II, another tough time: Have Your Self A Merry Little Christmas. There's a blend of melancholy and a right dash of hope as heard in these oddly prescient lyrics: Faithful friends who are dear to us/ Will be near to us once more/ Someday soon we all will be together/ If the fates allow/ Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow/ So have yourself a merry little Christmas now. And with that, Merry Christmas and let your heart be light, for next year all our troubles will be miles away.

42 different acts in this show.

Countries represented: USA, England, Sweden, Denmark, Canada