pure science with a splash of black cat

Weird Al Yankovic - “Christmas at Ground Zero”
from Polka Party!

(N.B. “Ground zero” does not refer to 9/11. This song is from 1986. Don’t make the same mistake the Washington Post did.)

Never one to shy away from a morbid topic when there’s humor afoot, this is one song in the Yankovic oeuvre that was actually banned from the radio for being a little too morbid. Some might dismiss Al as just a goofball parodist, but his original songs are often brilliant and pull inspiration from whole genres or one person’s body of work — this one is a riff on Phil Spector’s production and orchestration style. Of course, the fact remains that his work sells because it’s fucking funny, and “Christmas at Ground Zero” certainly qualifies.

Brian Culbertson - “Sensuality”
from It’s On Tonight

When I was thinking of how I would describe this song to talk you into listening to it, most of the things I came up with were a little too…evocative, shall we say. Suffice it to say, the title of the song should give you a good idea of what it’s going to sound like, and the album is the kind of thing you put on the stereo to set a cetain mood. Really hot record, and no words getting in the way, telling you what’s going on. You gotta feel it. And you will.

Previously: Always Remember

José Feliciano - “Feliz Navidad”
from Feliz Navidad

José Feliciano is an incredibly prolific Puerto Rican singer, composer, and guitarist, and one of the few to find success in Spanish- and English-language music. For better or worse, however, he is best known for a simple and upbeat Christmas song.

Ella Fitzgerald - “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”
from Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas

Jimmy Sommers - “Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!”
from A Holiday Wish

Because, unfortunately, it snowed here last night.

The Jackson 5 - “Up on the Housetop”
from The Jackson 5 Christmas Album

Jermaine: Did you read Santa Claus my list?
Michael: Of the girls you’re waiting to kiss?
Jermaine: Mike, that list was only a joke!
Michael: Too late, Jermaine, he’s bringing you mistletoe!
Jermaine: But you just want toys and stuff.
Michael: Yeah, but that’s not even half enough! What I want means more than fun.
Jermaine: What’s that?
Michael: Love and peace for everyone!

Johnny Cash - “The Christmas Spirit”
from The Christmas Spirit

In London Town I walked around Piccadilly Circus
A mass of people movin’ here and there, I wondered where
On every face at every place was, “Hurry up, I’m late”
But a kind old man at a chestnut stand said, “Merry Christmas, mate”
And I felt the Christmas spirit

Eagles - “Please Come Home for Christmas”

The only new release the band had in 1978 was a great out-of-nowhere single cover of Charles Brown’s “Please Come Home for Christmas,” which Henley had chosen to record. He’d heard it on the radio as a child and now, with every other group recording holiday songs, thought the Eagles should do one too. It was as good a way as any to stay on the radio between album releases. It must have been extremely gratifying to the band that the public was so eager for anything Eagles that the 45 shot onto the charts, reaching number eighteen. No matter what was happening in the rest of the music world, clearly the Eagles could record the phone book and their audience would buy it. The fact that they didn’t was enough to make Joe Smith stop believing in Santa Claus.

Marc Eliot, To the Limit: The Untold Story of the Eagles
Da Capo Press, 2005

Dave Koz - “All I See Is You”
from Saxophonic

Jimmy Smith - “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (Trio)
from Christmas ‘64

For Day 1 of Amanda’s Christmas Music Spam, we have, uh, well, I don’t even know. I listened to this on the recommendation of some other jazz fans, and my initial reaction went to Twitter. I said that music rarely puts me at a loss for words, but here we are. That was about twelve hours ago. And…here we still are. I’ve listened to it again, I’m listening to it now, and nothing’s changed.

I can pick out the melody, though I’m not sure I would have recognized it at first without knowing what it was in advance. That’s the only thing I can even come close to wrapping my brain around. On the whole, it just sounds like the bastard love child of “Take Five” and “Green Onions.”

But I suppose this — the lack of a coherent reaction — is to the song’s credit. Between my age and the fact that I listen to centuries upon centuries’ worth of music, nothing much surprises me anymore. What I understand as innovative and risky in an historical context just doesn’t sound all that bizarre to my ears. (Which isn’t to say everything is comfortable to my ears. I can’t listen to avant-garde jazz without getting headaches — though I defended it to death after having to sit through Ken Burns’s mistreatment of it in Jazz — and my hatred for Schoenberg has been well-documented in other places.) This, however, manages to be both listenable and strange to me at the same time.

It’s kind of nice to have that feeling again.

To be slightly more concrete about the song, I can say that if you’re looking for Christmas music that does away with the traditional sleigh bells and cheese, you can’t do much better than Jimmy Smith.

(For what it’s worth, I think the big band version of this piece on the same album is weird, too, but in a way that makes sense, unlike this sentence.)