Worst Professor Ever

It’s Christmas Eve and I’m not cool enough to make my own video like EduClaytion or practical enough to give you Post Academic’s excellent tips for surviving the holiday.  But I’m cranky enough to take umbrage at a list of bestselling Christmas songs (America, get some taste!) and suggest alternatives.

1. Truth and Beauty

If you think truth is beauty, Robert Earl Keene’s ‘Merry Christmas from the Family’ is, as one YouTube commenter puts it, ‘ the best and truest Christmas song ever written.’ This may depend on where you come from, and if you don’t like ‘Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk’ as an opening line, I’d suggest skipping to the next category. But if you do listen, note the audience participation, which is about as enthusiastic as what you get in Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song. Happy people responding to truth and beauty is always a great thing, even if you don’t celebrate the holidays in question.

(I’ve chosen a no-frills video so you can listen, but if you want the ‘official’ video — which is kinda funny but doesn’t quite capture Keene’s self-deprecating deadpan — it’s here.)

2. Intellectual/Global

Personally, I like the Chieftans’ Christmas album (+ the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’) for the global and Stephen Colbert’s Christmas special for the intellectual: you’ve got his cover of ‘What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding’ (Elvis Costello and Toby Keith, oh hell yeah) AND the original ‘There are Much Worse Things to Believe In’, which you can play at obnoxious atheists.

Yes, if you’ve got believers and non-believers in the same room, things can get pretty hairy. This is why I’ve gone with Tim Minchin’s ‘White Wine In the Sun’, an Australian song about being ‘freaked out by churches’ but enjoying the family aspect of Christmas. It’s sentimental enough to please the staunchest of Christmas supporters.

Thanks to Dr. $hiraz for introducing me to this song and explaining that in Australia, it’s summer during Christmas so they’re sick of putting up with our ‘white Christmas’ agenda.

3. Traditional(ish)

Believe it or not, this is the largest category because I include reboots in it. I’m all about the Brian Setzer Orchestra and his ‘Nutcracker Suite‘; I like Loreena McKennit’s take on ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’ because it recognizes the Bible’s kinda Middle Eastern roots; I lurrrrrve Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone’s version of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside‘.

Frank Sinatra’s a close second but there’s only one person I absolutely can’t argue with: Johnny Cash. Even if you don’t believe the message of ‘Silent Night’, you can totally trust the messenger  — just consider it a triumph of form over content.

I like the 2003 acoustic version best — click and you can listen to it once, or buy it from iTunes — but it’s not on YouTube so here’s the somewhat overblown 70′s version:

All right, I’m going on vacation. There will be Bad Santa, fancy dessert, The Hogfather and KGSR, the best station ever because it understands that Christmas music is not to be played until Christmas Eve. Feel free to share your ‘can’t live without’ Christmas music if you’re stuck at work and/or goofing off – otherwise, step away from the computer and do something relaxing!

Tags: adam sandler, baby it's cold outside, brian setzer orchestra, Christmas, Christmas music, christmas special, elvis costello, fairytale of new york, god rest ye, hanukkah song, holiday music, leon redbone, loreena mckennit, merry christmas from the family, music, nutcracker suite, pogues, robert earl keene, songs, Stephen Colbert, tim minchin, toby keith, white wine in the sun, Xmas, zooey deschanel