Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

I love this song, and I don't feel it gets the play it deserves. I can't trace when I first really started loving this song. It probably goes back to Darlene Love singing it on Letterman, which obviously deserves its own oral history.

The song is classic Phil Spector. Do what you want with that. But, it takes you somewhere pretty great in just under three minutes. Attention must be paid.

The original version by Love is still the best, and there's a case to be made for it as the best pop Christmas song of all time. As a testament to the greatness of the song, it's hard to make a lousy cover of it. One of my favorites is the version by U2. No frills really; just their normal weirdness. May it be stuck in your head until June.

The Christmas Song

Not to be confused with "Christmas Song" by Dave Matthews (I'll get to that later), this song begins "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." It usually isn't one of my faves. I have to be in a certain mood to want to hear it, and I'm rarely in this mood. I also feel like it has been done by literally everyone, which I know is the case for lots of songs I'll be discussing.

My favorite version, hands down, is Nat King Cole's. I think there's really no comparison. His phrasing is incredibly suited for the music of the song. I also love the instrumental break. Everything works together so well. Even the somewhat cheesy "Jingle Bells" bit at the end is great.

No one else should bother with this song.

The Christmas Song

Holiday Songs

For some time I have threatened to release an all-encompassing master list of holiday songs. The time is now for this to happen. I shall try to post one each day through Advent and perhaps beyond. Sometimes the songs will come with extensive comment. Other songs need no explanation. If you feel that the versions I list as the greatest are in error, please prove me wrong. They will occur only in the order I think of them. Let's begin.

Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding

This song makes me exceedingly joyful whenever I hear it. I don't think there's any way to make it better. It's perfection.

Honorable mention for other good versions: B.B. King and Bruce Springsteen

Making Room

My son, who is almost three years old, loves the movie Room on the Broom. The book is one of my favorites to read with him because it reminds me of fall and Halloween (which I love). It also has a cadence of words that I enjoy. The movie is different in some notable ways. First, it takes thirty minutes to tell a story that can be read in about eight. So the cadence of language is lost. Second, the narrator is British, so that’s an improvement to my voice. Third, the characters express emotions in a way they don’t in the book. The most obvious way this final difference changes the story is found when subsequent characters ask, “Is there room on the broom for me?” In the book, a straightforward and excited “Yes!” from the witch is all that happens when a dog, bird, and frog ask about climbing aboard the broom. But, in the movie, when the dog asks “Is there room on the broom for a dog like me?” a cat, who had already been granted access to the broom, shakes his head. What’s worse, each animal who is welcomed to the broom wants to deny a place for each new animal. In the span of a few minutes, the dog goes from practically begging for a place to denying a spot for the now begging bird. What is it that makes those who were once unwelcome receive welcome and then become unwelcoming to others?

This past Sunday, the Sunday School class my wife and I attend discussed Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard. We used Dr. Amy-Jill Levine’s study “Short Stories by Jesus.” Levine makes a fascinating point regarding this parable. She focuses on the idea that those in the story who are waiting to be hired for work have been waiting in the same spot all day. Something she finds troubling is the lack of advocacy those workers who are hired engage in for those who remain unhired. Moreover, when those who were waiting to be hired were finally hired, those who were hired earlier grumble at the fact that they are paid equally rather than celebrating both the generosity of the vineyard owner and the providence for those who need to be able to feed themselves and families. How can we deny others the same gifts we have received?

The current situation of welcoming some people but not all people in an equal fashion in the United Methodist Church is problematic for many reasons. Perhaps the most offensive element about the lack of welcome to all people is the position of ownership by other people. To return to Room on the Broom, the cat and dog don’t own the broom. The witch does. Those who are requesting a space on the broom aren’t asking the other occupants; they are asking the owner. The church belongs to Christ. If Christ has called and welcomed all people, who are we to turn them away? If the generous owner of all things seeks to make us all equal, who are we to persist in inequality? Perhaps we have forgotten who created all things and called them good. Maybe we have also forgotten that the Lord we worship was born in a stable because his family was told, “There is no room for you.” We continue to tell God “You are unwelcome” until we make room for all God’s children.