Why I pray for a silent night this Christmas
Carols and seasonal songs are just an insidious and invasive part of this time of year.
OF all the terrible things that happened to Jesus, at least he didn’t have to put up with Christmas music.
Thankfully for Jesus’s whanau, carols didn’t turn up for centuries after his death.
According to the Interweb, Christmas-themed music has been produced since the fourth century but wasn’t really part of religious services, as it was deemed inappropriate for what was supposed to be a solemn occasion. Instead, Christmas songs were sung on the street and not in church.
Although, in the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas carols throughout Britain (just imagine if that rule had carried on and become a thing the Brits took with them as they went around merrily colonising the world) and, in 1739, the first published version of ‘‘Hark! the Herald Angels Sing’’ appeared, most of what we’d regard as traditional Christmas music is actually less than 200 years old.
I don’t mind hearing Christmas music on Christmas Eve, or a few songs by, say, Boney M, Bing Crosby, Elvis, Nat King Cole – even Michael Buble – the next morning. But it’s annoying when the tunes creep through malls like an insistent invisible fog that subconsciously drives shoppers and retail workers quietly insane.
Maybe, if it was winter, the music would be more bearable. It could be quite a nice feeling walking through silently falling snow and looking forward to chestnuts roasting on a open fire. But no one has time for those lyrics when you’re melting into your jandals, feeling like any moment you’ll die of heat exhaustion.
It’s just as well that learning how to avoid Christmas music is the kind of skill you develop as you grow older.
This is essential in New Zealand where, back in the day, middle-of-the-road radio stations had a weird seasonal obsession with playing a song about Charlie Brown’s dog taking on a German fighter pilot ace in a plane fight.
It’s not that the 1967 hit by the Royal Guardsmen, ‘‘Snoopy’s Christmas’’, is a bad song. It’s just hard to appreciate its charms after its thousandth rendition.
But even if you don’t particularly enjoy hearing a constant stream of Christmas music – and who would without wanting to bang your head on a manger – you can still acknowledge that some of it is huuuge.
Mariah Carey’s ‘‘All I Want For Christmas’’ was released in 1994 with a video that looks like home footage of Carey frolicking in the snow with Santa and a dog that is wearing fake antlers.
It didn’t really blow up – strange after such a powerful video – but it featured on the movie Love Actually in 2003 and is now the biggest selling Christmas song ever.
Every year that song earns her more than $715,000 in royalties and this week – 23 years after release – it cracked the Billboard top 10. Not bad given Carey says she ‘‘wrote basically like a kid on my Casio keyboard.’’
One saving grace is that – like many of Carey’s songs – not many people can sing it. The right honourable Jacinda Ardern, this week refused to give it a crack on radio, saying it was too high. Thank Goodness. Another great call from our new prime minister.
Manuia le kirisimasi, New Zealand.