Cliche but true

I love the holidays. I really do.

I especially love the music. Since there are all these songs that we only hear during this time of year, they BECOME the holidays, they DEFINE the holidays, I honestly believe they create a change inside of us simply by being heard.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have had a tougher time immersing myself in the holidays in recent years - the realities of organizing things with kids makes it much busier and less peaceful. And this year has been tough as well.

But yesterday I finally completed the process of importing all my Christmas music to iTunes and syncing up my iPod. Now understand, this took about a week - I have Christmas music that spans almost all genres and time periods. From "Hipster's Holiday" to the Empire Brass, I love it all. And so I hooked my iPod up in the car on the way to work today, set it to shuffle all my "Holiday" music and drove to work.

One of the first songs to come on was of course Mannheim Steamroller's "Deck The Halls". And I am almost ashamed, yet joyously happy to report, that I was almost immediately fully in the season.

That arrangement...is a total cliche to anyone who listens to holiday music. It's so omnipresent in the malls, we almost don't listen any more. And musically, it is SO CHEESY! The sounds are straight out of the Main Street Electrical parade - bad
80s synth like you wouldn't believe. Compositionally it's pedestrian. It is so DATED...

...and yet it WORKS. And I think it's because it was a fresh idea at the time. And that freshness is something that music can retain even if its component parts have worn out.

And as a musician and part-time music snob, I'm embarassed to admit that this piece of American Cheese has such an effect on me. Look, people. I think that Chip Davis has run the Mannheim Steamroller Christmas franchise into the ground. He has more albums out there than I even know about (and I am a completist with my album collections). I think his later attempts are largely uninspired attempts to recreate the magic of the first Christmas album. I've been to his live Christmas show - it falls into the 'so bad it's good' category.

But...

I can still remember driving to my grandparents in Pennsylvania with that music on in the car. It has become synonymous with the magical feeling of the holidays - of going to visit far-away relatives where great things happen. It is so cliche, so cheesy, so LAME...but it works. And I'm glad to say that I finally feel like Christmas has come into my heart now.

That's great, Chip.

Matt