Merry Melodies – Mark’s Picks

We’re having a little fun in the run up to Christmas. We’ve looking across the MTT staff and seeing which Christmas songs they’ll be streaming this Holiday Season and which ones they’d ban outright.

My Top choice is pretty easy.  It isn’t a song are very likely to be familiar with unless you’re a great big Rilo Kiley fan.  Odds are you’ve probably never heard of them especially if you’re in the UK.  Yet, I have been a great big fan of theirs for years with their quirky lyrics and their songs not all being about the same two topics, I’m so in love with whoever or, I’m so in love with whoever but they don’t love me back.  This is a song all about Christmas, not some Cliff Richard esq fairy tale or some threat to children that Santa may not visit them.  It’s a little bit more like the Christmas that many people actually experience.  For some it may be a day of family joy and togetherness but there is a reason suicide rates soar at Christmas time.  This song captures a little dash of that melancholy but don’t worry because the New Year is coming so just keep holding on.  So cry into your Christmas cake if you want, today.  I also love the simple harmonics of it, so varied in their own musical ensemble style.  It’s a quality composition unlike like such Christmas music that is aimed at those with the sophistication of a half deaf, drunk 5 year old.  Have a listen, it is an outstanding song.

My second choice is much, much harder.  There are so many to choose from, so many wonderful songs out there that it always amazes and horrifies me that shops insist on playing the same bloody dozen songs over and over and over and over.  I really struggled to pic but eventually I had to select one.  So I’ve picked another modern song by a band you probably won’t have heard of, again, especially if you’re in the UK.  It’s by Relient K (yes that’s how they spell it) and it’s called Merry Christmas Here’s to Many more.  It is a little bit like my first pick in that it’s a little bit more realistic but this time it’s much more jovial.  We all know life is hard, things to do, never enough time in the day but Christmas can be a time when friends come together and realise that you know, sometimes life isn’t all that bad.  It’s not a compositional masterpiece but it’s pleasing, competent and it reminds me that for all our moaning, Christmas can be wonderful.

This next song was another hard pick but I wanted something traditional in here too, music doesn’t have to be modern to be good you know.  So this song I like, I like it simple melody and the vocal harmonic layering’s.  It’s easy one the ear and pleasing.  Also it makes me giggle a little inside.  Listen to the words and I am very sure that the writer was well aware that Mary never encountered a cherry tree but opted for that and the connotations of the word selection brings.  As God created the cherry tree for Mary to pluck, God well, erm you know, with Mary.  Yes it’s juvenile a little but sue me, it’s fun and I do love such word play.  To borrow from Dogma, God has a sense of humour, just look at the Platypus.

The song I would like to banish forever, well there are so many but it must be that one by Slade.

Where to start with this piece of musical excreta.  Firstly, not a one of them can sing, I say singing but it really is vocally produced noise.  Then you get to the lyrics, just what the F where on?  “Do the fairies keep him sober for a day.” Yep kid’s in addition to their apparently being lots of Santa’s they are all drunks and then asks what will your father do when he catches your mother cheating on him with a presumably drunk Santa?  Oh but it gets better yet.  It then talks about you ride down a hill in a buggy you’ve made where you shall crash, land upon your head and then the classic line, “Then you been slayed.”  Then we launch into how everybody is having fun now.  Yep, Santa’s an alcoholic drunk, your mother is cheating on your father with him and you’ve just been killed.  Everybody is having fun are they?  The futures only just begun has it?  Well maybe for you in heaven they mean?  Who the hell knows?

Plus the thing is just an abomination acoustically.  It’s a droning mass of noise that makes me want to put an ice pick in my ears.  Hate the thing and god only knows why shops insist on playing such a monstrosity.