Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

Brigid Daull Brockway is technically a writer

A blog about words, wordplay, and etymology, with slightly more than occasional political rants.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Secular Songs

  • White Christmas was written by Irving Berlin, who was Jewish. He also wrote Easter Parade.
  • Mel Torme and Robert Wells wrote The Christmas Song on a sizzling hot day in July as they attempted to keep themselves cool by thinking winter thoughts. Mel Torme was also born Jewish.
  • I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas was penned by Satan himself, and he forces radio station managers to play this abomination every year or risk eternal damnation.
  • Every year, PNC Bank issues a Christmas Price Index in which they calculate the value of all of the items listed in The 12 Days of Christmas. This year, it's $23,439, up 9.2% from last year. The TARP Price Index tells us that PNC bank recieved 7.6 billion smackers as a gift from the American taxpayer in 2008.
  • Christmas songs that don't mention Christmas: Jingle Bells, Winter Wonderland, Baby it's Cold Outside, Frosty the Snowman and Jingle Bell Rock. Apparently this is part of the war on Christmas and not, you know, evidence that people like other things about winter other than Christmas.
  • The Feast of Stephen referred to in Good King Wenceslas is actually December 26th. Another attack in the war on Christmas?
  • The Christmas Shoes is, in fact, the most cloying manipulative song ever written, Christmas or otherwise. Seriously? 
  • O, Christmas Tree is okay I guess, but it can't hold a candle to Mr. Rogers' moving tribute to trees, Tree Tree Tree. The lyrics are as follows:
    Tree tree tree
    Tree tree tree
    Tree tree tree
    Tree tree tree
    Not my hero's finest hour.
  • Other Christmas songs composed by Jews: We Need a Little Christmas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, Silver Bells (famously recorded by Kenny G, also Jewish), 
Sources include this, Wikipedia, PNC Bank's Web site, the great filing cabinet that is my mind.
Seriously, the empty apartment upstairs' smoke alarm has been going off since 9 last night. It woke me up at five. I'm considering stabbing myself in the ears.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

I agree ten thousand percent on I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas and The Christmas Shoes. They apparently felt it was so emotionally manipulative that they could make a whole movie based on it!

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