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Just Hear Those Sleigh Bells Ringing
Dec. 21st, 2004 08:30 amHappy yule, y'all.
There's no expectation of snow here, though I'm hearing there may be some snow flurries in Dallas tomorrow night. Houston gets left behind with the rain.
Here I have to say I'm feeling Christmasy, which is good since I need to make one last dash through the stores tonight getting the last gifts, mostly for coworkers. I still have to find a little something for Lisa and for Screaming Amy who surprised me with a Dilbert desk calendar.
I still haven't done my bug overdose on Christmas music, just letting iTunes intersperse the songs in with regular music. Not working in a Jewel/Osco or a department store or Starbucks keeps me out of a barrage of non-stop Christmas songs that would have surely driven me mad by now. Still, i've actually picked up a few more songs on line through Apple.
A few years ago, when I was still on dial-up and Napster was still a free and not legal file swapping service, I was finding some Christmas MP3's online (please don't tell the RIAA) and letting the computer spend whole nights obtaining the tunes. My mother asked me what was going on, and I explained that i was getting Christmas songs, and she asked me if I could get her some songs as well.
Mom hadn't really gotten the whole illegal aspect of the whole file-sharing thing.
Still, she bugged me about it quite a bit, probably because I was having a big Christmas music extravaganza that year, I think it was because I wasn't working retail that year, and I was happy! One of the songs I had picked up was one of my favorite songs, Sleigh Ride. In fact, I there's several versions of the tune, and I have always been a big fan.
So Mom continues to bug me about burning a disk of songs for her, and I ask what she wants on the disk. In true Edwards spirit, because if you ever ask us where we want to go to dinner, you'll get the same answer, "I don't know, just choose something."
This of course is dangerous.
After several attempts of asking her what she wanted, I made it a mission to find a disk full of songs for the disk. 21 tracks in all. I happily gave the disk to her, and she took it, and put it in her car. Later when she came back, I could tell that she had listened to the disk.
"Michael, is there anything but Sleigh Ride on this disk?"
"No Mom, but there are 21 different artist!"
It's true. I managed to find 21 different versions of Sleigh Ride, actually reaching my limits of tolerance for the song. I started with one of Mom's favorites, the Johnny Mathis version (and as Kip said, when else but Christmas do you hear Johnny Mathis?) and then went through others. There's the Boston Pops, the Spice Girls, Garth Brooks, an extremely perky version by Debbie Gibson, fast, slow, instrumental, sung, lots of Sleigh Ride.
Now, dispersed amongst over 300 other songs, it's not as noticeable in iTunes, but I have gained a few more versions over the last few years. iTunes says I have 30 versions of the song - without duplicates. So for someone who says a song can't be re-interpreted, I beg to differ. It sure can. Sometimes it shouldn't be, because there's a few versions that truly should be destroyed in a vat of cristmas candy-cane acid.
Still, there's the moment where the whip cracks in the classic version, and the horse ninnies, and that's Christmas to me.
There's no expectation of snow here, though I'm hearing there may be some snow flurries in Dallas tomorrow night. Houston gets left behind with the rain.
Here I have to say I'm feeling Christmasy, which is good since I need to make one last dash through the stores tonight getting the last gifts, mostly for coworkers. I still have to find a little something for Lisa and for Screaming Amy who surprised me with a Dilbert desk calendar.
I still haven't done my bug overdose on Christmas music, just letting iTunes intersperse the songs in with regular music. Not working in a Jewel/Osco or a department store or Starbucks keeps me out of a barrage of non-stop Christmas songs that would have surely driven me mad by now. Still, i've actually picked up a few more songs on line through Apple.
A few years ago, when I was still on dial-up and Napster was still a free and not legal file swapping service, I was finding some Christmas MP3's online (please don't tell the RIAA) and letting the computer spend whole nights obtaining the tunes. My mother asked me what was going on, and I explained that i was getting Christmas songs, and she asked me if I could get her some songs as well.
Mom hadn't really gotten the whole illegal aspect of the whole file-sharing thing.
Still, she bugged me about it quite a bit, probably because I was having a big Christmas music extravaganza that year, I think it was because I wasn't working retail that year, and I was happy! One of the songs I had picked up was one of my favorite songs, Sleigh Ride. In fact, I there's several versions of the tune, and I have always been a big fan.
So Mom continues to bug me about burning a disk of songs for her, and I ask what she wants on the disk. In true Edwards spirit, because if you ever ask us where we want to go to dinner, you'll get the same answer, "I don't know, just choose something."
This of course is dangerous.
After several attempts of asking her what she wanted, I made it a mission to find a disk full of songs for the disk. 21 tracks in all. I happily gave the disk to her, and she took it, and put it in her car. Later when she came back, I could tell that she had listened to the disk.
"Michael, is there anything but Sleigh Ride on this disk?"
"No Mom, but there are 21 different artist!"
It's true. I managed to find 21 different versions of Sleigh Ride, actually reaching my limits of tolerance for the song. I started with one of Mom's favorites, the Johnny Mathis version (and as Kip said, when else but Christmas do you hear Johnny Mathis?) and then went through others. There's the Boston Pops, the Spice Girls, Garth Brooks, an extremely perky version by Debbie Gibson, fast, slow, instrumental, sung, lots of Sleigh Ride.
Now, dispersed amongst over 300 other songs, it's not as noticeable in iTunes, but I have gained a few more versions over the last few years. iTunes says I have 30 versions of the song - without duplicates. So for someone who says a song can't be re-interpreted, I beg to differ. It sure can. Sometimes it shouldn't be, because there's a few versions that truly should be destroyed in a vat of cristmas candy-cane acid.
Still, there's the moment where the whip cracks in the classic version, and the horse ninnies, and that's Christmas to me.
