Christmas Music

There's a wealth of good Christmas music to pick from: I estimated thousands of old songs, and some new ones that I suspect will become classics also: "Mary Did You Know," for instance.

There are even more performers, and the economics of the field seem to force them away from doing standards--not enough expected sales, I guess. So everybody tries to jazz the standards up a little and make them different enough to stand out. After all, if I already own one performance of Silent Night why should I buy another one this year unless there's something different?

I've read that hymnody was one of the glories of the Protestant churches. It might be a little hard to sustain that claim using what plays on WNWC this time of year. I heard a fragment of a new song tonight that went roughly like: "Baby Jesus do you know that you came to die for our sins? Don't be afraid, after three days..." at that point I reached Walmart and gratefully turned off the song. Did the composer realize he was expressing superiority to Jesus?

Time to turn on a little Handel, and maybe the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas album (if you're going to be different, do it well!).