Relief is here! Just listen to this sampling of…Scientology music!
If you listen to the whole thing, at the very end you get to hear L. Ron Hubbard himself sing (or try to, anyway). And you’ll then find yourself reconciled to “pa-rum-pa-pa-pum” and “fa-la-la-la” and all the other crap playing non-stop in every commercial locale in town right now. Or at least, you’ll be able to say, “It could be worse.”
Writing, composing, singing — there was no start to his talents.
(With apologies to Terry Pratchett.)
PZ, is this your answer to Ed Brayton’s recent question “What Kind of Music Would You Consider Torture?”?
As a retail wage slave, I appreciate this. I will think on these songs as I listen to “Here Comes Santa Clause” for the 12,000th time between now and Wednesday.
And I thought xtian metal was bad! To be fair, that was before I learned about polka metal but Scientology rock is worse than both of those.
Screw the music. I want me a Hubbard Professional Mark Ultra VIII™ E-Meter!
It’s not as though there aren’t some really lovely carols. For example. I’d shop more if they played stuff like this.
Thanks, guy. _Huge_ improvement. Is this one of those expectations reset things? As in: the six billionth repetition of White Christmas might not seem so bad with this considered as context?
(I honestly try not to get too grinchy about the Christmas stuff. But honestly, some of it gets such repetition, there’s just no way. I seriously wonder how people actually working under those speakers stand it.
This season, for reasons I know not, some odd Beach Boys ‘seasonal’ thing seems to be stalking me. And while I was previously at best neutral on said band, this thing is pushing me solidly into the haters category.
I _like_ lots of things about the season. The cultures that started the whole ‘it’s really dark, might as well party’ thing, this I like. But I think I’ve just endured too many years of canned Rudolph.)
Fuck you.
Fuck. You.
F.u.c.k. Y.o.u.
Sideways.
If I were religious, that fucking song would be all the evidence I needed of a malicious and evil god.
Jingle hell
jingle hell
jingle all damn day
how I wish that shitty song
would finally go away-Hey
My favourite Christmas song is White Wine in the Sun by Tim Minchin. Though “Merry Christmas from Chiron Beta Prime” by Jonathan Coulton is ALS pretty damn good.
Damn, I meant also, though there may be an ASL version out there
I’ve gotten to abhor the secular music associated with Christmas. But I find much of the sacred Christmas music quite beautiful and I enjoy listening to it. I know that the classical music station I listen to will play Handle’s Messiah on Christmas day. Regardless of what the words say, the music is great and I will look forward ti it.
George
For those who enjoy the angelic voice of Hubbard:
http://www.cracked.com/article_21942_6-celebrities-you-didnt-know-had-ridiculous-music-careers.html
Interestingly “Here Comes Santa Claus” isn’t actually a secular tune. The religious bits simply get lopped off most of the time. It was written by Gene Autrey and Oakley Haldeman. The final two verses are the following:
Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,
Right down Santa Claus lane
He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor
He loves you just the same
Santa Claus knows we’re all Gods children
That makes everything right
So fill your hearts with Christmas cheer
‘Cause Santa Claus comes tonight!
Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,
Right down Santa Claus lane
He’ll come around when the chimes ring out
That it’s Christmas morn again
Peace on earth will come to all
If we just follow the light
So lets give thanks to the lord above
That Santa Claus comes tonight!
In a piece broadcast December 21st on CBC Radio 1’s The Sunday Edition on Christmas music historian Robert Harris claims the “It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor” line was removed in ’50s versions of the song, because it was considered too socialist by some. You can hear his entire piece on bad Christmas music at the following link. podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/podcasts/sundayedition_20141218_77043.mp3
If so then Marlene Dietrich is a divine angel, being the only person ever, to do a pleasant cover of that awful song. “Thumpity-thump-thump thumpity thump thump look at Frosty go” however is irredeemable even by the likes of Ella Fitzgerald.
Every year, I’m confident that I have died and gone to some Sartrean hell where we are tortured with music we’ve heard over and over and over and…
But on a sad note, Joe Cocker has died. Now there was a unique talent.
I don’t know how retail workers, or anyone else for that matter, can stand this constant barrage of Christmas music for months on end. The constant saturation, combined with the societal pressure to have “The Best Christmas Ever,” has caused the holiday to degenerate from a joyful, festive tradition to a grueling, miserable chore. I think the only reason we put up with it is that Christmas is a sacred cow, considered to be perfect in every way, and if you don’t enjoy everything about it, something must be wrong with you. It’s a lot like religion in that regard: I know it took me a while between not enjoying Christmas like I used to and simply not wanting to go through the whole routine anymore. At first, I doubled down, throwing myself into the songs and shopping and decorating, thinking I would recapture the joyful feeling I once had. No luck. But as I was literally just walking down the street, I realized what was wrong: I didn’t want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to decorate. I didn’t want to shop. I didn’t want to watch the Grinch steal Christmas or sing about a reindeer with a bioluminescent proboscis for the zillionth time. I wanted to do something else..ANYTHING else. It wasn’t that I hated Christmas. I was just burned out on it and wanted to take a break. And when I did, it didn’t lead to me being miserable and depressed like the Hallmark specials claim; quite the contrary, in fact. I felt as though a great weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I started doing more of the things I ACTUALLY wanted to do, stopped worrying about what other people would think, and enjoyed the season for the first time in years. I know there are a lot of you out there who still enjoy Christmas, and I don’t begrudge you. I just ask that you show a little consideration for those of us who don’t and stop shoving it down our throats. That would be the best gift you could give.
There’s this. If you can ignore the Derlethism.
I once worked at a classical music radio station; virtually all of the music was programmed by the Music Director. As we got closer to 25 December the proportion of Christmas music went up, but it never did get above 75-80%. The MD claimed he did that to preserve the sanity of the on-air operators.
I despise the “pa-rum-pa-pa-pum” song. It is particularly noisome. But not to spare the other Christmas songs, which epitomize Sturgeon’s law.
And classical music stations have no business broadcasting Christmas music unless it’s Handel’s “Messiah” or a Bach Christmas cantata.
I’m dreaming of a Xenu Christmas,
Just like the volcanoes I use to know.
Zeno @20:
The MD did program those two compositions, but there’s a lot more classical music composed for Christmas. It’s been over three decades so I can’t remember any specifics.
I am one of those retail workers (that geology degree is about as useful as a screen door in a submarine…). It’s one of the only good things about being so tremendously deaf; the music is nearly inaudible, so I’m free to replace it with, say, a modern arrangement of Thunderforce III’s soundtrack in my own head :D
The HP Lovecraft Historical Society also have a whole series of ‘Scary Solstice’ songs. I like them because I can sing these lyrics while I’m being bombarded with that xmass crap.
Once, about two years ago, I made an offhand remark to a cashier at a Target about how annoying the Christmas music was there (it was their own thing, a very short and obnoxious melody that kept repeating every few minutes in the electronics section.) He opened up about how terrible it all was, and specifically mentioned a time when they were repeatedly playing Taylor Swift there.
I suspect this is something that neither the workers nor the customers want, but is imposed by smarmy, trapezoid-smiling marketing executives.
@ woozy, re: Little Drummer Boy:
I made it about 45 seconds in. I found myself horrified that the world hadn’t imploded in shame for allowing this song to exist.
No sale. :)
PZ, you should get huge speakers and amplifiers and play one of these every 15 minutes from 6 am to 10 pm, so all your neighbors can share in it. You might need to buy a cemetary first, though. But you’d have your ordinance in about 30 minutes.
There’s actually also a plethora of beautiful Renaissance Christmas music, if it’s to your taste, although it might be nicer to sing than to listen to (personal experience). But yeah, gimme Bach any time. Händel, mwah.
Living in Turin, I’ve largely escaped carols this year. A few irritating non-carol Christmasfarts in shops, but aurally, that’s about it. There are lights, but mostly not specifically Christmas-themed. There is, however, an epidemic of small Santa Clauses posed clambering onto balconies. According to an Italian friend, this is a recent fad.
This should come as no surprise for anyone familiar with the country that gave us Hevisaurus, but yeah, in the tradition of Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Finland has produced a project, called “Raskasta Joulua” (“Heavy Christmas”), presenting metallised Christmas songs, and with so much success that by now new albums appear annually. In Finnish, of course.
Those lovely melancholic Finnish carols can also be listened to in much more traditional interpretations by Tarja Turunen, who has also presented them in more unusual arrangements together with “Harus”, a contemporary-classical-leaning (with jazz influences) project (out of which also came a creepy improvised instrumental called “Astral Bells” that’s neither particularly Christmasy nor exactly considerate of pop sensibilities, but an odd curiosity that the audiences still appear to enjoy and which I also think is quite cool).
Wait, 50 comments into the thread and nobody has linked to this?
timgueguen:
Have they redacted the bible in the same way?
Whenever i hear The Little Drummer Boy, i want to listen to The Little Trumpet Player instead
Hey, Santa wears read. I’m sure he’s a commuinst…
Sili @ #&: my sentiments exactly. “The Little Dumber Boy” gets my vote for the worst xmas carol ever written. I thought xians were supposed to be happy at xmas, but that thing just drags interminably on like the most depressing funeral dirge evah.
I don’t think I even want to click on that video. Scientology music? That makes the worst Christmas carols sound good? No thanks. I have actually always had a soft spot for the little drummer boy, but if you want to hear a much improved version of it, check this one out that I found thanks to NPR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iiVuPUFwB4
I’m surprised how many people dislike “The Little Drummer Boy.” And to quote myself from years back:
Someone take the kid’s sticks away! Better yet, feed the poor boy, find him some place to live, and get him into school. After all he’s a poor boy, and needs some better way to make his way in the world than banging on a ratty drum for whatever deity happens to decide to incarnate within walking distance.
The only time I almost enjoyed the Little Drummer Boy was singing it with my choir, who did it in Latvian, and conducted by one of the country’s best conductors, and he really did some nice things to it. It’s a hard song to make interesting, but he sure tried hard, and we tried, too. Then again, the best part was when it ended. :P
Also, much bigger fan of the regular old folksy pagan stuff – a tad repetitious, but less god and more fun in the winter (and more weird traditions, such as going out to listen to the bees on christmas eve to see if the summer will be warm – never said my local people were any good at weather forecasting).
For Americana Christmas carols, this is, as the cool kids say, da bomb:
Renaissance? Pffft. One of the best services of lessons and carols I ever sang in was one where almost everything the choir sang without the congregation joining in was a 14th century French carol. That was great. Normally we did a mix of various centuries/ traditions/ countries.
Of course, we had to endure certain members of the congregation taking to task any one of us they could collar after the service was over because of our singing that Papist stuff. How you’re supposed to sing about the virgin birth without mentioning the name of Mary was always a mystery to me, but there were a couple of people who really didn’t like it. Every. Single. Year. There was also the small matter that there were no protestant churches of any kind before the Reformation, so carols in Latin and/or including Mary’s name were more or less obligatory if you wanted early music.
I for some reason have always enjoyed the Johnny Cash version of The Little Drummer Boy.
That implies you’ve never heard the song.
One music source I happen to like, CBC Music, has been doing the Christmas stuff rather nicely on the streams I listen to[1]: Blending a limited number of Christmas themed songs that fit in with the stream, (e.g. Twisted Sister’s version of Deck the Halls on the Rock Classics stream). Along the way I’ve even discovered a version of Little Drummer Boy I can stand to listen to, (Jimi Hendrix), it’s still not something I would spend effort to hear it but it doesn’t send me diving for the controls.
[1] There are a couple of Christmas-only streams for those who like that.
So long as Jingle Bells persists in its blightful existence, I’ll never be able to understand singling out Little Drummer Boy.
Everything tbtabby said at #17. All. Of. It.
Except, as a retail wage slave (who works at a nationwide craft chain, no less) all I can do is lock it out of my house. Unless I DVR everything I watch, even that isn’t enough.
I will confess that I’d happily endure another whole month of xmas music on the rotation at work if we could just pitch out those gag-inducing cinnamon pine cones. The ones that start coming in SEPTEMER for Cthulu’s sake! The insidious things tend to infect grocery stores as well, so I change my shopping habits and let the store managers know why. Thank goodness Trader Joe’s doesn’t stock artificially stinky pine cones!
Back in my religious days, I spent 15 years in choir with a first-rate music director. The result of this is that the only tolerable song I have to listen to at work is Ave Maria sung in Latin (my only gripe is that the singer makes it sound like Italian.) I like almost anything xtian music-wise if it’s in Latin. Fun to sing, nice to listen to.
twincats @44
Latin is essentially a dialect of Italian. During World Wars I and II, many British officers who had learned Latin in school discovered they could talk to Italians using Latin and could understand the Italian given in reply.
I’d say that depends on the setting. Historically informed performance an’ all tha’.
It’d be silly to perform Pergolesi, say, in late empire Latin.
I have to confess (ha!) that my fave Christmas carol is “Cantique de Noël” (I do prefer the French), particularly when it’s sung by someone with a powerful voice. Goosebumps.
I also recently found out that the original poem was written by an atheist. Huh.
Or this…http://youtu.be/7oOzszFIBcE