A Joyful Noise

As I wrote yesterday, not all Christmas songs make me want to drink myself into a coma. There are plenty that plant a grin just above my chin. Most of them aren't the most obvious choices, though.

There are some holiday tunes I like because they haven't been covered to death. (Do we really ever need another version of "White Christmas"? Or "The First Noel" ? Or a hundred others? No, no and nooooooo.) I could choose just about anything from Spector's album and do well, but I have particular affection for "Parade of the Wooden Soldiers" by the Crystals and "The Bells of St. Mary's" by Bob. B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans.

Why? For one thing, you can't go wrong with just about any selection from that album, but these two songs in particular also have the advantage of not having been reinterpreted over and over again. When you get down to it, neither one is really a Christmas song at all; the holiday isn't mentioned in either, though the former is at least about toys (a very Christmas kind of thing) and the latter is most closely associated with Bing Crosby (a very Christmas kind of actor/singer). Both are performed with substantial energy and production polish, and "Bells" in particular reaches heights that are surprisingly emotional.

There are other Christmas songs I love not because I love the songs in question, but the performers' treatment of them. For example, I've never really liked "Jingle Bell Rock." Something about it just bugs, and the Hall and Oats version from the '80s didn't improve it one bit (it was, in fact, a note-for-note remake and therefore entirely pointless). The version by British string quartet Bond, though, takes something annoying and makes it shine. Their approach is similar to Spector's "Wall of Sound," filling all the audio spaces with joyful noises and infectious energy. It also helps that they dispense with the lameass lyrics and go entirely instrumental, giving the song a tightness and urgency it never had before.

"The Little Drummer Boy" is another song I don't really get along with--not so much because of the song itself, but because of the irritating animated special Rankin & Bass (creators of the infinitely more entertaining Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer special that has aired at least once a year on CBS since my very first Christmas) built around the song. The aforementioned Bing Crosby, though, brought new life and sweetness to his version of the "The Little Drummer Boy," which combines it with another song ("Peace on Earth") and pairs Crosby with an unlikely, yet effective, duet partner--David Bowie. Unfortunately, this was Crosby's last Contribution to the Christmas music canon: a month after recording "Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth" with Bowie for a 1977 TV special, he died of a heart attack on a golf course in Madrid, Spain.

Some of my favorite holiday songs aren't holiday songs at all, but remind me of this time of year. Eurythmics' "There Must Be an Angel (Playing with My Heart)" has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas, but Angels do, and Annie Lennox's gorgeous vocals (accompanied by a nice harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder) help this tune fit in with the season just fine. Brian Wilson's "Trombone Dixie" isn't a Christmas song either, but his liberal use of sleigh bells in the course of recording this obscure instrumental (during the same sessions that produced Pet Sounds, the greatest pop album ever--no, really, ever), unreleased until about 20 years after it was made, put in a box and forgotten, always makes me think of snow and smiles.

Wilson's younger brother, Dennis, recorded a song for the Beach Boys' second Christmas album (which was shelved by their then-record company and available only on bootlegs until the late 1990s, years after Dennis's drowning death in 1983) that walks the fine line between sad and happy holiday songs. "Morning Christmas" isn't so much sad as it is somber, a melancholy juxtaposition of the joy of children opening presents on Christmas morning with the more serious intent of the holiday, often lost amid the bows and wrapping paper--the celebration of the birthday of God's only son.

"Morning Christmas" is warm and subtle and lovingly constructed. It's a shame more people haven't heard of it. Maybe a couple more people know about it now.