Year-round Yuletide oddities
Some songs claim that Christmas needn’t hurry. It can be late.
John and Garfield debate both sides in ‘A Garfield Christmas.’ We’ve sampled “Can’t Wait for Christmas” before–but, hey, when happy takes on grumpy we want to watch.
Wonder Pets from Nickelodeon will sure miss the cute reindeer when they lisp in the most childish fashion “Christmas Eve Will Have to Wait.” Mixed messages at best. Chimey whiney at most.
This is the day before the day. This is when we really wait for Christmas. Here’s my list of boss tunes to get you through the next 24 little hand clicks.
Hit that Motown funk with Lee Rogers and his 1965 angry-cool “You Don’t Have to Wait ’til X-mas.” Is the blood pumping?
“Sedated (I Can’t Wait for Christmas)” is what it promises, a punk polite play on the urban outrage. Mark Sacco sleds in warmly. Two Inch Winky played this for us a couple days ago, but i’ve got my ugly jumper on and the cocoa’s telling me–this is the version you want today.
While we’re ‘cross the pond let’s get psychedelic with Loose Tapestries. Their “Can’t Wait for Christmas” is tight pop with an undercurrent of iconoclasm. Those rogues!
Jump blues gets the Nashville easy listening treatment from Cherie Brennan with “I Can’t Wait for My Baby to Come Home.” Love is in the air, and it happens to be nearly Christmas. Consider this half-time frilly silliness.
Back to the British Invasion! V.D.King (?) tries out a Beatles pastiche with their “I Can’t Wait (‘Til Christmas Day).” Again with the love, actually. This time with more pretty rock pop.
Girl power from The Courettes keeps us 1960s bound, but with more reverb fuzz and folk infusion. “Christmas (I can Hardly Wait)” wonders where you are, baby. And why the hell aren’t you here now!
Enough of the powerful. Time for the nuts. The Ping Pongs tell the 1964 rock tale of Johnny Jones who wails “I Don’t Wanna Wait ’til Christmas.” Now that’s novelty.
King of the novelty heap, however, must remain Mr. Mel Blanc’s “I Tan’t Wait ’til Quithmuth Day.” Here’s a low-fi 1953 78 to celebrate. It’s like Elmer Fudd is seven years old.
Christmas is a big deal, a big show. Let’s bounce in our seats in the audience waiting for curtain time.
We’ve celebrated the Teresa Brewer big band version, now let’s try “I Just Can’t Wait ’til Christmas” as a torch song with back room bluesiness. That’s a better cover, mother. Madison O’Neill for the win.
But, I do admire a jazz tempo big band serenade. See what Jenny Daniel’s (cover again) of “We Can’t Wait.” I shiver so much i hear the tinkling of a two drink minimum.
Legit overorchestration arrives via The Kindie Songwriting Club (In the Nick of Time) and their slow building “Can’t Wait for Christmas.” This erstwhile kid song elevates the genre to showstopper.
Class up the kidsong, zip up the talent and tempo, and we have less than a mess and more of a cynical manipulation. I can’t help how i can’t stomach Raffi and his ilk.
Some imagination over food and Santa interaction boosts “Can’t Wait for Christmas Morning” by Johanna Lewis. But the sweetly humble kid intonations make me pick this as a song for the retirement home, rather than the romper room.
The Texas twang of Rosie Flores imbues corrido-stylings to “Watchoo Waitin’ for Christmas?” lofting it to higher musical levels. ‘Cause then there’s food again. And then there’s accordion, and honkytonk piano. Finally the stilted beat seems almost reprimanding. Can’t recommend this to anyone under 55.
The message in “I Can’t Wait!” by Patch the Pirate is unbearable anticipation for Grandma to open the special present from ME, the kid. Showtune shenanigans that feels by-the-numbers for all its ingenuity.
Warmed over retro rock for the chilluns should set me back on my heels, but i’m only slightly offended by The Wiggles crooning “Just Can’t Wait for Christmas Day.” It stinks of dad-hobby, but the boys’ve got talent: C-.
Even when kid songs are slickly done, they overload the smarm factor to the point of nauseous nurturing. I’m down on all fours to show you I care!
The Crocodettes go sped-up chipmunk vocals for “I Can’t Wait for Santa Claus.” a catchy, calculating treacle. The greed is ‘adorable,’ but the electronic brass is horrible.
Earnest and harmonious, The Polka Dots march-chant “I Can’t Wait for Christmas” with that mixed message of unbridled desire and snare drum. Confusing, and yet… math.
Bad mic and glockenspiel don’t slow Cheryl L Gleason’s “I Just Can’t Wait for Christmas,” which is more annoying chant to get the parents to give one up early, than actual kidsong.
Sue Bleazard’s SingKids! entry “Waiting for Christmas” is more plodding, but just as syncopated to introduce Bethlehem and JC and patience. No one wants to sing along with this.
So, i guess, kids music is crap. At best it’s an earworm of clapping and shouting, but it strikes me too often as condescending overexplanation. No wonder kids rebel younger every year. Like mini-Robespierres, they want their turn in the power chair telling even littler ones whassup.
So, the worst of kidsong sounds like… The Wiggles. This Australian ’90s sensation indoctrinated children to marshmallow versions of music genres, so they wouldn’t know jazz if it fell on them. Here “Wags, Stop Your Barking! It’s Almost Christmas Day!” (feat. Barry Williams) devalues rock below dadrock into Disney levels of showtune.
More traditionally pablumatic, Mr. Ray & The Little Sunshine Kids feature a sound Kim Jong Un would smile at: chorussed Christmas spirit with every voice fulfilling its joyful duty. “It’s Almost Christmas” is the formula, not that’s there anything right with that.
Retro fun comes with the exercise workout percussive workout from Hilary Henshaw “Christmas is Nearly Here.” Gather round all the ADHDs to drill. The unintentional irony helps.
Serious show tune gets me in the mood (except for how all the songs sound the same), so a moment for a well done Sesame Street melody from Elmo and Sheryl Crow “It’s Almost Christmas” (the title being basic the entire lyric for the singing).
What gets me up in the morning, though, is the rando existential playfulness of “Yell It Out! (It’s Almost Christmas).” The childishly affected mushmouthing, the jazzy improv tambourine, the wandering train of thought–that’s anticipation for the BIG Day! That’s what that is all right.
We’ve been swarming to the box stores around late December for the sole purpose of seeing the big guy in red. But, i admit it, Santa might be somewhere at the other end of the promenade, or not even on duty. As they say, if you’ve seen one shopping center, you’ve seen a mall. So let’s celebrate the real estate.
One of my favorite parody bits is Joel Kopischke’s Green Day funny “Shopping Mall of Broken Dreams.” I encore it here with great joy.
Jerry Reed does his country comedy with “Christmas at the Mall.” Trouble is, he’s past his due date and this wheezing whopper is hard to bear.
A great whale of a jug band thumper (just a glimpse of St. Nick) is The Like of Jeff Pittman’s “Christmas at the Old Mall.” Jig by the J.C.Penny’s!
Where to observe the covenant of Christmas? Let’s meet at Toys R Us… or Old Navy! pop croon Girlfriend Material in “It’s All in the Mall.” Not a lot of holiday directly mentioned here, but what a party tune (and it’s on their album If Anyone Asks, Just Tell Them You’re Santa Claus).
Tom Chapin slaps around Wenceslas, Gilbert and Sullivan, Tchchaikovsky and with loads of French horns gallops about with “Bruno’s Christmas on the Mall.” It’s a kidsong epic adventure in child neglect and magical vandalism.
We’ve all seen that photo: the howling kid on Santa’s lap, another ruined (and expensive) photo from the mall.
Michael Gurley takes us there with his cute, comic kids’ song “I Ain’t Gonna Sit on Santa’s Lap.” Aww, he comes around after his tantrum!
Christmas lights can be just one more thing on the to-do list for holiday atmosphere. No biggie.
The “Lights so Bright” in Paul Cartledge, Philip Jewson’s kidstune merely pave the way for Santa, angels, and presents. It’s a warning sign, not a symptom.
Marcy Tigner’s aw shucks Shirley Temple approach to “Colored Christmas Lights” makes me worried she’s singing about a segregated neighborhood. But her eyes are full of all these things, including holiday sparklies. Kidsong of bygone days.
Cod Sent Flute sums up the randomness of the season with the quiet garage poem “Christmas Lights.” Those lights are there, perhaps, to show us Jesus.
The usual complaint about sunny California Christmas puts “The Lights and Buzz” into their proper pigeonholes by Jack’s Mannequin. Incidental alt, with a message.
Fiat Lux may be confused for God himself. Among first lines of books, it’s a lovely enigma and can be taken many ways. But Christmas is so dark, lights are called for. The birth of Mr. Christ might call for the lights.
One of the well known lights are carried by a couple French girls to announce the Nativity to the town (don’t tell Herod!). “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” is a fair tune of some centuries’ standing, and probably does better in the French with lyrics. I enjoy Sufjan Stevens‘s whispered telephone call, as well as LA’s Carnival Art’s early ’90s rollicking populist near-punk (which seems about right, even with the Whoville bit at the end).
“The Four Lights of Advent” is a light, airy kids’ instructional tune from Mary Thienes Schunemann about the ancient Xmas celebration of flaming on the Sundays leading up to 12/25. Candles are fun!