Tag Archives: christmas carols

Seasonal Fare

Asalto Navideño!

I love Puerto Rican Christmas music. One reason is because it is nearly indistinguishable from non-Christmas-y Puerto Rican music. Granted, that is due in large part to my poor knowledge of Spanish. But, it is also indicative of a culture that has a very different view of the holiday than that of most Americans.

Traditional American* Christmas songs are either religious (overtly or tacitly), or they are somewhat gentle in their celebrations of the joy of the season. Christmas is presented as great because snow and jingle bells and presents and stuff. The pleasure you derive from the season is supposed to be a general feeling of Good Will Toward Men.

* I realize I’m getting into thorny territory by saying “American” in contrast to “Puerto Rican” when Puerto Rico is in fact a part of the US of A. Please excuse this shorthand as a means to forestall excessive hyphenation and explanatory adjective chains. 

Puerto Rican Christmas songs, on the other hand, are about more earthly delights. In fact, nearly every one of them is about the unabashed merriment of eating, drinking, dancing, or any combination thereof. Christmas is sung of as a wonderful time of year because you get to do these things with your friends and family.

Of course, everyone parties at the holidays, but ever since Dickens (and maybe earlier), that is not reflected in the art we make about the holiday. Regardless of what we actually do on December 25, we feel compelled to assign a greater, more lofty meaning to Christmas in songs, movies, and stories about it. Admitting that you’re looking forward to taking a Yuletide vacation from moderation is seen as somewhat gauche, if not vaguely blasphemous.

In the world of Puerto Rican Christmas songs, however, there’s no conflict of wondering if we’ve lost “the reason for the season” because partying is the reason for the season.

Continue reading Asalto Navideño! →

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Santa Claus Is Coming to Town

Did you know you know that record labels used to release special commentary tracks to play along with 45s, much like the ones available on your modern DVDs? It’s true! This holiday season, Scratchbomb has transcribed some Yuletide examples of this bygone format and presents them to you now for your reading pleasure. Today, the commentary track for “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

HAROLD STERLING, CIA STATION CHIEF: In 1951, I was tapped to head the MK-KLAUS program. This program was coded at security level 4-7A, which meant that if President Truman had even asked me about it, I was authorized to shoot him.

The main purpose of the project was to construct a Christmas song that could combat the insidious communistic influence found in holiday fare like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Several top songwriters were conscripted into the Agency, given high level security clearances, and instructed to produce a Christmas carol that could subliminally combat Soviet propaganda. This wasn’t the first time we’d done something like this. During World War II, the OSS parachuted Cole Porter behind enemy lines, where he was instructed to charm the Nazis into surrender with his sophisticated songsmithery.

We took the songwriters and holed them up in a bunker several miles below an undisclosed location in the New Mexico desert. Several days in, however, it became apparent that they were not accustomed to working in such an austere environment. So we relocated them to a New York studio, armed with an upright piano and a stockpile of gin and Lucky Strikes. Cyanide pills were distributed in case the boys at the shoeshine stand got too nosy.

The songwriters grew much more productive here, but several had to be dismissed when it was discovered they’d ignored the purpose of the project and written the complete score to “The King and I” instead. In early October, a suitable song was finally produced. The song speaks of a tyrannical, omnipresent man in red who knows what you are doing at all times, even when you are sleeping, and warns you to watch out for his arrival.

The song was piped through the vents of unsuspecting department stores to gauge an organic response from the general populace. The results were astonishing–shoppers breaking out into spontaneous fits of whistling, foot tapping, and general Yuletide merriment. This experiment led us to release it into the holiday environment as an airborne contaminant, where it remains to this day.

The song was later used as a trigger device for a highly trained assassin, who was hypnotized into such a state where he was not aware of his own abilities, but would become “activated” again once he heard the song. The plan backfired while he was on assignment in Guatemala and heard a local folk tune that resembled the trigger song, then mistakenly sniped the enormous stone figures at a Mayan temple.

MK-KLAUS was slowly phased out after that unfortunate incident, though some of its principle figures were later assembled to compose a Cuban jazz riff that could make Castro’s beard fall out.

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks

Christmas Carol Commentary Tracks: Deck the Halls

Did you know you know that record labels used to release special commentary tracks to play along with 45s, much like the ones available on your modern DVDs? It’s true! This holiday season, Scratchbomb has transcribed some Yuletide examples of this bygone format and presents them to you now for your reading pleasure. Today, the commentary track for “Deck the Halls.”

RODERICK WINTHROP, ARRANGER/LYRICIST: Years ago, I had the chance to spend a cold winter’s eve at the estate of eccentric old baron who would no doubt wish to remain anonymous in this story. He regaled us with his many tales of frivolity and ribaldry. It was quite the caprice, I should say!

Later in the evening, as we relaxed with a fine amontillado and a few of the less hearty members of our party retired to their rooms, the baron took to his piano and favored us with a few obscure airs. Some were of his own composition, others discovered during his extensive ethnographic travails. We particularly enjoyed his rendition of a song that was part of the scalping ceremony among certain savage tribes of the ancient Picts.

However, we were most enchanted when our host played us a lilting, jaunty tune we’d never heard before. It sounded perfect for the Yuletide season, a sing-a-long for a cheer-filled wassailing.

The baron tried to disabuse us of this notion. According to him, it was a medieval Welsh folk song used to give homage to a feared demon that lived high atop Mount Snowdon. He further told us it was still fervently believed by the few remaining druidic types in the Welsh hills that repeated playing of the song could awaken the beast and set his wrath upon the earth.

I for one have never been much for superstition, and seeing as how the tune itself was in the public domain, I set about writing my own cheerful lyrics to it. The baron implored me not to, and even perished by his own hand when I refused to heed his warning. I assumed that even if there was any truth to the legend, one would need millions of voices reciting it simultaneously, which was frankly impossible.

Of course, now with these newfangled Edison cylinders–such as the one you are listening to right now–it is technically possible to have millions of voices singing the song all at once. So I suppose we shall see if it really is a rallying call to a deathless beast. I shall watch these developments with great anticipation!