And speaking of Christmas music…
…(which I was)…yesterday I was in a jewelry store and a truly ghastly Christmas carol wafted through the air.
It sounded like someone’s drunken uncle. It sounded a bit like Tom Waits, but not quite.
“Is that Bob Dylan?” I asked in horror and disbelief.
Ordinarily I kind of like Dylan’s distinctive nasal-and-raspy-but-not-untuneful voice. It works for his own songs—most of the time, anyway.
But oh no, not for this, not for this:
Had our neighborhood Christmas party last night. Good food, pleasant conversation, and singing Christmas songs led by one of our neighbors who was once a professional singer. Of the ten songs we sang one was a religious carol, “Silent Night.” The rest were all politically correct secular Christmas songs. 🙁
I’m so thankful that every Christmas season of my high school days were spent rehearsing and then performing the Christmas pageant, which was a recitation of the birth of Jesus with all the traditional carols. That is what Christmas will always be for me. It’s nice that secular songs exist, but I love the carols.
Well, that didn’t last long. Terminated account.
You have seen the “Most Wonderful Time of Year” Trump song and video, right?
J.J concludes, 4:37 pm — “It’s nice that secular songs exist, but I love the carols.”
This touches on one of my pet peeves [c’mon around and I’ll introduce you to the whole menagerie].
“O Holy Night” is a Christmas carol. “Jingle Bells” is a holiday tune, not a Christmas carol.
“O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “Silent Night” are Christmas carols. “Winter Wonderland” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” are holiday tunes, not Christmas carols. Santa Claus has nothing to do with the birth of you-know-who.
I don’t think I’m *that* curmudgeonly, really. I just think it’s worth distinguishing between what the Christmas event commemorates, and the non-Christian influences that, over the decades and centuries, became attached to the Christmas phenomenon (Saturnalia and all that).
I’m not a curmudgeon, I’m an originalist.
—
Messianic Jews (MJs) go one better and insist on divorcing their religion even from Greco-Roman and otherwise ancient western influences. They refer to Jesus only by his Hebrew name — Yeshua (the common name Joshua).
Christ, which means “anointed”, is the Greek rendition of the Hebrew word translated “Messiah”, but “Christ” is not normally in the MJ vocabulary. MJs speak of Yeshua as Meshiach, Meshiach being the Hebrew pronunciation of the (English) word Messiah.
It strikes me as primarily cultural rather than religious. I’m not an MJ, but for me, I say the MJs have a worthy point there. A couple, in fact.
Your mileage may vary.
—
Fellow neophiles (and certainly landlord “neo” as well), have a wonderful Christmas/Chanukah season/celebration!
I am so sick of seeing polar bears & penguins. They are on everything, It’s disgusting. When I was growing up we had wrapping paper with the 3 kings, children in choir attire, single lit candles, occasionally Santa. Now there is never paper with a hint of religiosity, if you want paper like that you have to hunt online at a religious bookstore etc. & is much more expensive then stuff at CVS or Walmart, how pathetic is that but I will not buy. polar bears, they act like this is an animal worshipping society. I guess to Peta it is. Lol
Happy Christmas / Chanukah to all both holidays with religious significance, thank you God !
Bob Dylan, sounds like Willie Nelson, lol
Well done Carols are so majestic & the Mormon Channel BYU T V Round a movie called the First Silent Night about the remarkable priest Josef Mohr who wrote the poem that was later set to music & became the Carol. It’s a Carol that is more recent compared to some of the traditional music.
mollyNH,
Too bad we have no polar bears and penguins in Iowa, and they probably taste nasty; otherwise I would hunt them just as if they were venison for the freezer or jerky for the dryer.
“These visions of Johanna conquer my mind.” Next to It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry; my favorite Dylan song.
Bob’s absence from the Nobel ceremony warms my heart.
I kiss Dylan’s feet, but I would leave the room where he was mangling “Twas the Night before Christmas.”Still it’s good to see even the greatest have lapses in judgement.
Let me compound your misery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PITCmngiMfA
You’re welcome, neo. It’s just what I do.
Here, of course, is what Christmas should sound like.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qEVkFvMI5U
Wait! You’ve heard me sing Christmas hymns?
Dawn patrol. Christmas day.
http://www.marinebuzz.com/marinebuzzuploads/ChristmasDayatAircraftCarrierUSSNimitz_10493/Christmas_Day_USS_Nimitz_1.jpg
OK, not at dawn. But Merry Christmas to all the ships at sea, and Happy Hanukah, too. Christmas at sea is when the shooter dresses up like Santa, and you get together to open your presents in the ready room with your friends. Whatever presents made it out to carrier on the COD.
It’s not really a bad deal. It’s a special Christmas.and it makes all the other Christmases for the rest of your life all the more special as you know what it’s like to spend it without your family. Same for Hanukah. It’s not PC that drives it. You’re just all in it together and that just makes you close.
So this morning I kinda gave the barbells a desultory push and roll across the floor, and went to turn on the radio for something to distract myself while doing the reps.
The radio was tuned to NPR for some reason I cannot explain, and I heard some guy being interviewed who was talking about being Jewish and craving the Christmas music he didn’t have as a child.
Turned out it was Neil Diamond. I listened as he began doing some gawdawful composition of his own and eventually flipped it off, and gave up on the workout.
But I thought of Neo’s blog, and so I just just now Googled “Neil Diamond loves Christmas” and lo and behold this came up first.
ttp://www.npr.org/2016/12/17/505854554/neil-diamond-on-loving-christmas-music-as-a-jew
Very touching, Neil. But that song … ugh.