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
Wait a second, wait a second, let’s back up a little bit. There are songs that are traditional to this season because they reflect this time of year or capture a feeling that might envoke this time of year and thus are included in Christmas Songbooks. Some songs, like in my country, are just about things that go on around this time of year. Take for instance the popular Puerto Rican jingle about the chicken soup that made everyone sick:
las dos de la mañana (at 2AM)
Nos comimos un sopón (we ate a hearty chicken soup)
y se nos pegó un dolor (but we were all in pain)
allá por la madrugada (come the dawn)
Cogieron una gallina (they took a hen)
Le partieron el pescuezo (they broke her neck)
le rompieron ” to”s los huesos (they broke all of her bones)
le cortaron la pollina (they cut off her crest)
Todo el mundo en la cocina (everyone in the kitchen that night)
comentaban aquel suceso (commeded the great success)
no quedaba ningún hueso (because there wasn’t a single bone left)
de aquella pobre gallina (on that poor hen)
And then it goes on to tell about how the rooster, the hen’s husband and angry widower, exacts a revenge on all who ate his wife by making them horribly sick through the dawn. And why is this a Christmas song you ask?
Because it’s implied that no other time of year would you be up at 2AM with all of your family making a soup of this type because you’ve just returned from midnight mass at church. No need to explain. It envokes that time of year.
Oh, we have another song about killing a pig:
el lechón se coge (the pig is caught)
se mata y se pela (the pig is killed and skinned)
se pone en la vara (the pig is put on a spit)
y se le da candela (and the pig is cooked over a fire)
Again, no mention of Christmas, but it creates a mosaic of that time of year.
Sizzle… oohh.
I can’t swear to it, but, although the ventures did play the line correctly, they probably did it on Mosrite guitars. As most of the album jacket photos were posed with the Mosrites, I think they had a sponsorship deal. Try that one on the Kazbors crowd. Merry Winter
Uncle Tom is quite right: the Ventures definitely used Moserites. I read somewhere else that there may be a slight Christmas reference in this tune–”prints by Currier and Ives.” But I checked out these prints and all I saw was a bunch of yahoos looking not all that happy to be riding in sleighs w/ no Christmas trees in site. But your point about murdering this tune with the little bridge is right on target and I even noticed it this year while listening to Johnny Mathis’ version before I read this. TOTALLY wimped out. If only more people would get the message…