Top 10 Christmas Recordings

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To kick it off, let’s honor this season of giving with a list of our top 10 Christmas recordings of all time.  And yes we know this is a debatable topic, and that is the whole point!  People will agree and people will disagree, and obviously it is a subjective list!  Everyone has his or her own connection to certain songs/versions for many different reasons defined by personal life experiences and individual aesthetic.  It should also be said that we are, for the purposes of this particular list, leaving out any choral or orchestral works, as it is difficult to compare these separate genres side by side.  So this, for what it may be worth, is our take on the best Christmas recordings EVER:

10.  Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow! (Harry Connick Jr.)

Who said big band is dead?  If it is, HCJ did not get the memo because it is alive and thriving on his 1993 album “When My Heart Finds Christmas” (has it really been nearly a quarter century!?).  There are plenty of blazing cuts on this record, but we’re going with “Let It Snow,” because from the first note to the last, this track simmers and swings.  Artists today like to talk about “making it rain” – Harry Connick Jr. makes it snow.

9.   Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee)

Is an explanation even required?  This is a true staple of the holiday music collection.  A little bit rock & roll, a little bit country, some blues, some rockabilly bounce, and a vocal that never gets tired – it just keeps belting out that infectious tune for oh…going on sixty years now!

8.   Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Band Aid)

There was no Duran Duran Christmas album, nor one by U2.  But in 1984, we would get the next best thing, an original Christmas song by a bunch of popular artists at the time, calling themselves “Band Aid” and creating an anthem for famine relief.  What no one could have foreseen is that the song has now become one of the most played and most revered holiday songs this time of year.  While vocals by the likes of Simon Le Bon, Phil Collins, Boy George, and George Michael are certainly nothing to casually dismiss, it is Bono who steals the show on this track with his impassioned delivery on the line that everybody sings at the top of their lungs after waiting patiently for it to come.  As John Cena’s character Roger admitted in the new movie Daddy’s Home 2, “I’ll listen to that song in August – I don’t care.”

7.   I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (Jackson 5)

If you’re a performing group trying to create a recipe for success, a lead singer who is going to go on to become the single greatest showman in the history of contemporary music is a damn good place to start…even he happens to be only 12 at the time.  The writing was on the wall for Michael Jackson, who was already a confident front man (boy) for his older siblings, each of whom would have been recognized as profoundly talented were they not destined to be continually overshadowed by their  prodigious kid brother.  There may not be a better or more complete Christmas album that this by Jackson 5, which includes rousing renditions of Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, and Up On the House Top.  Still our #7 pick is the winner hands down.  It closes out the album with nostalgic charm and wonderful humor.  The part that really tips the scale is when the four Jackson brothers sing in perfect harmony and in complete seriousness, “Tickle, tickle, Santa Claus.”

6.   Last Christmas (Wham!)

Cheesy, melodramatic, oversung, overproduced, blah blah…perhaps.  Probably.  OK yes.  But lying in my bed on Christmas Eve with the radio on, knowing the surprises that awaited me the next morning just on the other side of the wall…feeling the magnificent glow of Christmas spirit inside, but with it a layer of bittersweet, coming-of-age sensibility, then even deeper the knowledge that there were near and dear ones no longer under our roof.  Complicated, and yet somehow it was all right there – there in that cheesy, melodramatic Wham song.  And like all great songs, when I hear it today, I am back there again.  Back in that bed on that Christmas Eve, back with those feelings.

5.   Silent Night (Boys II Men)

I triple-dog-dare you (there’s another Christmas reference for you all) to sit in a dark room with only the lights from your Christmas tree and a couple of candles and play this record.  Don’t move a muscle or utter a word.  Just be spellbound.  Let its magic overwhelm you, it’s mystery transfix you.  Don’t try to solve it like a puzzle or analyze it like a map – just live in its unassuming power.  If you can do all of the above, you might find by the end that you’ve been levitating like Luke Skywalker, hovering peacefully above his rock in his quiet place.  If none of that happens, rush to the nearest emergency room and tell them you have no pulse.  Recap: dark room, Christmas lights and candles, quiet reflection…may the force be with you.

4.   I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Elvis Presley)

When Judy Garland told us, “There’s no place like home,” we believed her.  Because we all know the truth when we hear it, and we all want to go home at journey’s end.  College students want to be home for the holidays.  Soldiers dream of coming home from war and being home with their families during the season.  Divorced dads often long to be back with the ones they love, peeking in on the children they regrettably left behind, as visions of sugarplums dance in their heads.  No matter how dark or wet or cold or dreary the world gets or how much disappointment, loss, or heartbreak we have endured along the way, this 1950s classic offers us the only thing we want or need – a way home.  Sadly, the sting of reality hits on the final line of the refrain when we discover that it’s all a fantasy.  He isn’t coming home.  She isn’t either.  And neither are we.  But what an intoxicating dream it is, while it lasts.  It’s not so bad though – being at home lasts around eighteen years for most of us, but dreaming of home?  Oh, that’s forever.

3.   The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole)

Although written in 1945, it is this 1961 recording that is the definitive culmination of the work.  Aptly titled, it is truly THE Christmas Song.  No melody or harmony instantly summons the ghosts of Christmases past like this one.  Its luxurious string arrangement coupled with a vocal that seems to literally drip with honey make it a real gem, a national treasure.  We don’t need to “see if reindeer really know how to fly.”  We know they do!  The art of restraint is evident and on display here – never too much, and never too soon.  No, they don’t make them like this anymore…not sure they ever did.

2.   White Christmas (Bing Crosby)

Did any crooner ever croon like Bing?  Let’s not quibble over that now – perhaps that could be a subject for a future blog!  For now, let’s keep an eye on the weather…because if there is precipitation in the forecast…and maybe just maybe the temp drops below 32 degrees, then could it…but wait, the ground has to be even colder and for longer, but if we pray really hard, maybe we’ll wake up and look out the window, and…and… Maybe it’s growing up in Georgia that makes that fine white powder so exotic, but we’d have gladly traded a working limb or a family member for a half-inch of snow.  That glorious blanket covers our world with hope and restores our faith in magic, in God.  Now you sprinkle that kind of pixie dust on Christmas Day, the most wonderful day of the year, and you have an explosion of fulfillment, a level of joy that’s almost decadent.  Sure, up north you have a better than average chance of getting snow on the 25th of December.  But down in the dirty south, it’s gold.  For us, it’s more than a song – it’s a promise – a wish that we keep waiting to come true.  And when it finally does, we lose ourselves in its absolute glory until it melts away (usually by noon the same day).  Then once again we hope, we pray, we wait.

1.   Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Carpenters)

Our top spot is reserved for perhaps one of the more underrated duos of the last century.  Richard’s palpable genius as musician and arranger combined with Karen’s other-worldly tone and vocal style create the breathtaking sonic experience that is The Carpenters.  I’m always surprised by their somewhat less than legendary status, given their spectacular body of work.  This dog may not have sharp teeth, but it can still bite.  And this record definitely leaves a mark.  In spite of the sentimentality of the lyric, there is a melancholy, haunting undertone to this track that belies it.  Nothing dark or brooding, just an unfulfilled longing, a hole that cannot be filled with tinsel, garland, or mistletoe.  I picture walking into a party from the cold outside, when someone takes my snow-speckled winter coat from me and hands me a glass of egg nog with a splash of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum.  I start to work the room, talking to all the nameless, faceless red sweaters that interrupt my path toward the empty chair in the corner of the room.  And in that loud, cheery room full of people, I remain – for better and for worse – utterly alone.  That’s not really my story, but I’ve felt that way at times.  I get the funny feeling when I listen to this intoxicating record that maybe Karen felt that way a lot of the time.  And now, from the other side, she is still telling us all about it.

Honorable Mentions:

Please Come Home For Christmas (Eagles)

The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) (The Chipmunks)

Grownup Christmas List (Amy Grant)

Blue Christmas (Elvis Presley)

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Johnny Mathis)

Where Are You, Christmas? (Faith Hill)