Happy December, Rebels. Do you hate Christmas songs, or know someone who does?
Are you throwing a religiously inclusive holiday party?
Here are eight
songs you can play for Christmas that technically don’t mention Christmas.
I
can imagine there are many lists like these, so I’ve given myself some rules:
1.
I must write at least 100 words about each entry. Super meta, but if there’s
nothing to say I won’t try to say it. This prevents me from throwing up a bunch
of links and calling it a day, and means I have to get creative in both my
descriptions and song choices.
2. If they’re non-lyrical, they
shouldn’t be covers of lyrical Christmas songs or belong in a Christmas-themed
setting. For example, Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Carol of The Bells is
instrumental, but a cover of a song with Christmas lyrics. Cocoa from Friday
Night Funkin' has no lyrics to begin with, but is used for a Christmas-themed level of the
game.
3. One song per artist. It’s too damn tempting for me to list a
bunch of songs from the same album, video game or show.
4. I must be
confident that at least somebody hasn't heard of a song on this list. While
Jingle Bells, Sleigh Ride and Winter Wonderland technically don’t mention Christmas, they’re
still way too popular. Plus, I can imagine some people hate those songs because
they're still "Christmas radio" songs.
Now to give you what you came for.
#1. REINE CITY (PIXEL LOBBY) – THEM’S FIGHTIN’ HERDS
Them’s Fightin’ Herds is a fighting game starring a cast of six (seven
with DLC) hoofed animal characters.
You can find other players to
fight online using the Pixel Lobby, where everything looks like it came out of a
Gameboy Advance or SNES RPG. It tries to sound retro, too.
Reine City’s Pixel
Lobby theme is a fun, wintery number in 3/4 time. It contains all the compressed
sleigh bell samples, bleeps and bloops your nostalgic heart could ask for. It
also has a nice amount of emotional “movement” without straying from the core
theme. It moves from calm to more calm by bringing parts in and out throughout
the piece.
Of course, like most video game music, it’s designed to
loop, so you’ll have to figure out where you want it to end when you make your
playlist. Good thing YouTube videos are finite.
#2. SNOW BURN – FEAROFDARK
Don’t get mad. It’s not another video game song. But it is a song
written with Famitracker, a program that can make music for real NES games.
If
8-bit music makes your ears bleed, this isn’t the song for you, but then
neither is the one above.
Snow Burn manages to sound “snowy”
without using sleigh bells. I love that, because it means Fearofdark avoided
what feels like a necessary evil of music clichés.
Like many of
Fearofdark’s songs, this one is a complex layer cake of ear candy, between the
bloopy arpeggios and soft white noise “drums”.
If you listen
closely, you’ll hear chords resembling the “da dadadada da da da daaaa” of The
Nutcracker, only in a different rhythm. It sounds like a lot of old Christmas
songs, but more in its music theory than straight-up references. This makes me
think the artist did a lot of research.
#3. HEAT WAVE/SNOW DAY END CREDITS – HEY ARNOLD!
Hey
Arnold! is a 90s Nicktoon known for its great background music by Jim Lang. It's mainly "acid jazz", or jazz with hip-hop elements. Can’t get much groovier than that. I also like the heavy use of samples in many of his tracks.
Like many
cartoons, one “true” 22 minute episode of Hey Arnold! was made of two
11-minute segments. This song was written for the episode Heat Wave/Snow Day,
which we might think of as two episodes. It’s beyond me why they put the heat
wave segment in the same episode as the snow day segment, but with that level
of irony it can only be on purpose. And it proves the show is set in New England.
The “Heat Wave” part of the
song comes from the lazy melody, which means whenever I get this song stuck in
my head I absolutely have to imagine Dean Martin singing it. La da
deee, da da da da da daaaa~
The “Snow” part comes from the obligatory sleigh bells, but there are chimes and a bell-like electric piano. This keeps with the electric theme of
the Hey Arnold! soundtrack.
#4. I’VE GOT MY LOVE TO KEEP ME WARM – DEAN MARTIN
Okay, so you hear this one every December. But it’s not nearly as ubiquitous as Jingle Bells, so there.
I’ve uh, got something of a soft spot for the
Dino. By which I mean “a huge crush on”. I don’t care that he’s dead, I like
looking at old pictures of him and movies he was in.
Don’t get me started on that voice of his, either. He doesn’t just sound
like velvet, he makes you feel like you’re swimming naked in it. Dude sounds
like a saxophone sighing. Dean Martin
does to me emotionally what a good cannoli does to me… emotionally.
Huh.
Oh, the song. Right. Ahem.
I obviously
like the way he sang this one. When he sings “And I will weather the storm!”
He kinda sounds like he’s “falling” on “the storm”. There’s a lot of
expression in this song in general, and I think that goes unnoticed when you
hear something this often.
You know, like how we can’t take
classical music seriously anymore because it’s used as a joke all the time. Or
opera. Dang it, I love opera.
I also like when he goes “I’ve got-ah
my love” the first time he sings the title. He did this “-ah” embellishment in
many songs, but hearing it in swing legitimately used to surprise me. I'm so used to it in rockabilly.
Anything I
can say about this song’s vocals, I can say about any Dino song. The quick
vibrato, the dynamics, the melodic flourishes, the way you can hear the rest
of his breath escape after he finishes a word… how you can hear him smile in
certain parts…
As for the instrumentation, it sounds more like a
“regular” swing song than a Christmas swing song. It actually feels like I can
listen to this outside of December. It’s upbeat, and it doesn’t sound like
it’s trying to be super nostalgic or sentimental (lookin' at you, White Christmas). It’s just, “It’s cold, I
don’t care, I love you.”
#5. SO WHAT (KIND OF BLUE) – MILES DAVIS
Kat, what does this have to do with winter?
I found this in
someone else’s Christmas playlist.
No, seriously. But I’ve found it
does sound appropriate for winter. Especially with the ting-ting-ta-ting of
the ride cymbal. It’s a cliché in jazz, but it reminds me of the rhythm used
for sleigh bells in many Christmas songs.
This is one of the more
“consumer friendly” Davis songs. It’s relatively simple in its
harmonies, and the drums do a typical swing rhythm without getting too
fancy.
The “daaaah dah” chords provide a solid and easily
identified theme as well. The improvised solos build from this theme without
being too “stuck” to it. I like how the chords and rhythm provide a basic
backbone without getting boring in the non-solo parts.
I put the
version from the album Kind of Blue on the list specifically because it’s
slower than the live performances. Winter demands chill.
There’s a
lot more to say on the music theory side of it (I mean… Miles Davis), but
let’s not break our brains.
I must say, though, this nine minute
song feels a lot shorter when you write while listening to it.
#6. JUNE IN JANUARY – BING CROSBY
It says January, but it’s still winter. I make the rules. And hey, Bing
is the voice of Christmas. Don’t tell the other crooners I said that.
I would have put the Dean Martin
version on this list, but I already put a Dino song on here. I was actually
torn between the Bing Crosby and Benny Carter versions, but ultimately I chose
this one because there are already too many instrumental entries on this list.
I still recommend it, though.
Bing Crosby’s voice, along with the
airy strings, make it sound almost as much like a Christmas song as any of his
actual Christmas songs.
This version has kind of a silly intro. It
says both the moon and the sky are “clouded” in one breath.
And
how do you “feel” the smell of roses? That lyric goes as far back as the
original version, so I really wonder why no one’s changed it to “smell the
scent”. There you go. Fixed.
That’s always bothered me.
#7. LITTLE JACK FROST GET LOST – FRANKIE CARLE, MARJORIE HUGHES
Once again, I was really about to put a different version on this list.
I wanted to use the Brian Setzer’s Orchestra version, but… you know how some
bad covers make songs sound like “fake” versions of themselves? That’s the
effect Brian Setzer’s Orchestra has sometimes.
Like, I’m sorry. I
love Brian Setzer. You know that. But I must call even my favorite artists out
when they don’t deliver.
I like the version with Peggy Lee and Bing
Crosby, but of course Bing is already on this list. I also don’t like how
over-the-top that version gets towards the end.
So I must go with
the original by Frankie Carle and his Orchestra, with vocals by Marjorie
Hughes.
I’ve never heard of Marjorie Hughes. Unfortunately I can’t
say much about her voice without comparing her to a young Ella Fitzgerald.
Thing is, Hughes sang this in a time when good vocals were the default and you
only stood out if you had a distinct style. At least that's how I think of old music.
I like her voice. It’s pleasant, and
not in an overly perfect or sickeningly sweet way. It does remind me of Ella,
but that’s because of the semi-husky quality. I’m not sure how to describe it.
Open-throated, maybe? She doesn’t sound like she’s singing from her nose. I
like that.
#8. ICE PATH/DARK CAVE – POKÉMON GOLD/SILVER/CRYSTAL (INSANEINTHERAIN
COVER)
This was also technically written for two things. This time, it
was written for two areas in a game instead of two segments of a cartoon
episode. These areas were Ice Path and Dark Cave from the Generation II
Pokemon games.
The original, composed by Junichi Masuda, was
already really cool. It was somehow spooky and calming at the same time, with
a melody that reminds many people of Clocks by Coldplay. It’s got a bassline I
can only describe as menacing.
Insaneintherain’s arrangement turns
it into a SUPER SWINGIN’ jazz tune that’s just recognizable enough as the Ice
Path/Dark Cave theme.
He changed the bass into a syncopated latin
rhythm, and those chords, dude. Those chords. I mean, this is a jazz cover, so
reharmonization is a requirement. But dude. There was a lot of room for these
complex harmonies because of the Gameboy Color’s limited sound hardware, which
could only support three notes at a time (not counting the noise channel).
And
I love how he unexpectedly switched to 3/4 right at the 3:40 mark. While
there’s still a rhythm playing in 4/4. It’s just so… *chef’s kiss*
There
are also a lot of tone shifts- from “deep, dark and sexy” to “criminal” to
“out on the town”. Good stuff. Go listen to it.
CONCLUSION
I hope you enjoy these songs as much as I do. As stated in the rules, I specifically wanted to add songs that at least someone has never heard of. The playlist can be found on the Rebel Palate YouTube Channel here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXH7Hl7jGCs8HUh9ZZv6eUO8bTE0h8HvQ
And
since this listicle was made up entirely of recommended songs, I must give you
a recommended food.
Ahem.
Cannoli.
Seriously, if you haven’t had a single cannolo (“cannoli” is plural) but you’re physically capable of digesting it, what are you even doing with your life? You’ve been depriving yourself. Go eat one.
If you don’t know where to get one, try your local grocery store or better yet, an Italian bakery. Chances are you can find them at non-chain restaurants in towns with a large Italian population.
Stay sexy (and keep warm)!
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