Large Fierce Mammal

Whether you be celebrating or just suffering through it, here we are on Christmas Day! Most of you probably are at a point where reading one of my usual diatribes will be impossible because you’ll be scanning the same line repeatedly, so I’m going to spare you in favour of a brief introduction to some seasonal musical accompaniment.

As I’ve said previously in this series, the road to the celebration of Christmas as we know it today has given birth to some traditions, legends, and beautiful musical expressions that the world would be much worse without. Christian believer or not, a classic Christmas carol, beautifully arranged and performed, is a thing of magick not to be denied.

Some years back I heard an interview with now retired CBC Broadcaster Frank Cameron. He had started his career in radio, and along the way had acquired a reputation for hating all Christmas music. He set the record straight, stating emphatically that he had nothing but love for true Christmas carols, and what he actually hated was the accumulation of contrived Christmas songs that every popular musician seemed hell bent on throwing together in the inevitable Christmas album. Songs, I might add, that his occupation required him to play, year after year. I don’t believe any of us need to think very hard before we start to feel his pain – I myself have a permanent callus on my left thumb from reflexively fingering the edge of the nearest blade whenever I hear Feliz Navidad. Nevertheless, the advent of musical talent is not a thing of the past, and uncontrived original creations of incredible beauty continue to appear outside the realm of traditional carols, from all genres, inspired by this season. I regret to say, not everything that follows conforms to that description.

So now I’ll leave you to figure out which is which in my selection of seasonal music aimed at your edification and, in some cases, education.

First off is this beautifully hot performance of Christmas Canon Rock by the one and only Trans Siberian Orchestra. No word of a lie.

This next one isn’t about the season at all. Instead it’s a memorable moment from the 1954 musical White Christmas featuring Bong Crosby and Danny Kaye.

If you aren’t sure what the hell just happened, you need to watch the movie, which also stars Rosemary Clooney at her most scrumptious, and the indigestibly stringy Vera-Ellen Westmeyer Rohe. Every time I watch the latter’s performance of the Mandy sequence in the Minstrel Number, I refresh my eternal gratitude for the progress choreography, dancing, and dancers have made in the years since then.

Now we’ll take an educational bent, and view some productions from Horrible Histories.

The history of the Christmas Tree as we know it today.

The terrible truth about Silent Night.

Of not so good King Wenceslas.

Getting back to True Arte, here’s Celtic Carol by the incomparable Lindsey Stirling.

And Lindsey’s arrangement of Silent Night.

I’ll finish with a gang of Irish bastards hell bent on putting Christ back in Christmas. There isn’t any video with this. I guess they figured the audio was enough. You have been warned.