War on Christmas, Part Two: “Sleigh Ride”
In my ongoing War on Christmas series I present examples of people, places and things which threaten to destroy Christmas altogether.
Today I will focus on the song “Sleigh Ride”. Let us immediately acknowledge that this isn’t even a Christmas song, as no mention is made of our dear Savior’s birth. Unless our savior is Farmer Grey. Still, there are other songs popular during the holidays which are not technically Christmas songs: “Let it Snow”, which is delightful; “My Favorite Things”, which is a masterpiece, but has more to do with bee stings than Christmas; and the worst non-Christmas Christmas song of all, “Jingle Bells”, which can go to hell. They all somehow have their place in the popular Christmas songbook, and I’ll leave their scandalous inclusion therein for another day.
Today, however, I am troubled by the lazy way in which so many singers have sullied Leroy Anderson’s tune, and all of them do it in the same place. The line “We’re riding along with a song of a wintry fairy land” ought to sound like this:
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Harry Connick, Jr. gets it right. So does Ella Fitzgerald. Even The Ventures articulate the melody correctly, albeit with Fender guitars. More often than not, however, you hear it like this:
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It isn’t just Johnny Mathis who wimps out. It is also Andy Williams, Amy Grant, Hillary Duff, Clay Aiken, and on an on. Phil Spector, murderer of songs and women, didn’t even include that section in his production of The Ronettes’ 1963 version.
Now that you are aware of the problem, listen out next time you hear “Sleigh Ride”, and see what I mean. In light of the inability or unwillingness of singers to correctly render the melody, I propose a worldwide moratorium on “Sleigh Ride”, to last indefinitely, preferably forever.
Filed under: Popular Music, Rantings on December 12th, 2007 | 3 Comments »