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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

Christmas for hipsters

December 19, 2014 by Terry Teachout

Capitol311In today’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I touch on a seasonal theme. Here’s an excerpt.

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Christmas songs are beloved for all kinds of reasons, only some of which are related to their artistic merit. “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” which tops ASCAP’s annual list of the most frequently performed holiday songs, is irresistibly catchy, but it’s still a super-square piece of earwormy tinsel. If you love it, the reason is doubtless because the eupeptic lyrics remind you of the merry Christmases of your childhood (assuming that you had any). If, on the other hand, you’re a musician, your feelings about Christmas songs may reflect other, less immediately obvious priorities. I love “Winter Wonderland” because my mother sang it to me at bedtime, not because it contains a super-cool key change. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I asked her to sing it every night because it changes keys, even though my five-year-old self didn’t yet know what that meant.

This isn’t to say that we aren’t responsive to words. Jazz musicians, for instance, have a special place in their hearts for Dave Frishberg’s “The Difficult Season,” in part because Mr. Frishberg (who is himself a much-admired jazz singer and pianist) captures in his lyrics a feeling that most of us have had at one time or another: “We each have our reason for singing a lonely song/And every December, it seems, the blues is our only song.” But it also has a lovely tune, and the songs that musicians like best are usually the ones in which the music is as memorable and individual as the words.

That’s why so many musicians are partial to a pair of holiday-themed songs that date from the mid-‘40s but remain eternally fresh. Ask a jazzman to play “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and you’re likely to get a freezingly fishy stare in return. But if you ask for “The Christmas Song” or “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” your request will be honored with genuine pleasure. Of all the Christmas songs written in the 20th century, those are the ones that in my experience are most commonly cited as favorites by professional musicians….

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Read the whole thing here.

Judy Garland sings “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” to Margaret O’Brien in Meet Me in St. Louis:

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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