This is just a note to thank you for providing us with nonstop Christmas music during this month—and half of last month too!!!! More than the shopkeepers, cashiers, stockers, Wal-Mart greeters, more even than the Salvation Army bell-ringers who provide a convenient place for me to put loose change and gum wrappers—in this season of giving, you all are the true heroes.
Those naysayers who disparage the massive media conglomerates! Where is the love? May Santa bring them a stocking full of Elmo and Patsy CDs, and may they all be heartbreakingly scratched so as to prevent their hearing (and enjoying, of course) “Percy, the Puny Poinsettia.”
I couldn’t resist taking this opportunity to tell you what your programming has meant to me. Consider this an addition to the many well wishes you play during commercial breaks, which offer praise and thanks to Clear Channel for the constant Christmas carols which “help us get through the season.” I could not agree more; my adoration, however, cannot be contained in a sound bite. Hence this letter.
Here are just a few of the ways your programming has made a difference in my life:
It makes me laugh.
It is simply not possible to listen to that Chipmunk Christmas song too many times. That Alvin! Will he ever pay attention to what’s going on? I think not. Oh how I hope that cute little scamp finally gets his hula hoop this year.
The quaint “Feliz Navidad” makes me chuckle as I remember a kinder, gentler time in our nation’s history. Gone away is the melting pot, here to stay is immigrant scapegoating. “I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas”!?!? Then speak English, Jose Feliciano! Or should I call you Joe Phillips? Yes, I think I should.
It makes me cry.
OK, I’ll admit it, “Mary Did You Know” gets me going every time I hear it. But the waterworks don’t end there. When Bruce Springsteen asks his concert audience in the intro of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” if they’ve been good, I hear the lackluster response, and my heart aches for the poor heathens who it seems have been very naughty indeed.
Band-Aid’s classic “Do They Know It’s Christmas” chokes me up for sheer historical reasons. The record raised millions for famine relief in Ethiopia and inaugurated the era of Big Benefit Records, and we’re all better for it. And when my beloved Bono sings, “Thank God it’s them instead of you,” you’d better believe I fall to my knees right then and there and thank the Almighty that someone else is starving to death instead of me. God bless those fluffy-haired British rockers.
It makes me think.
There are simply too many examples to name. Whether it’s the ecumenical issues at play in Barbra Streisand’s singing of “Ave Maria,” or the impact on the ant population if we did, in fact, live in a Marshmallow World, I find myself deep in contemplation again and again while listening to your program.
Perhaps the most thought-provoking song in your rotation is the soon-to-be-classic, “Where Are You Christmas?” Look, there’s a question right there in the title—you know right from the get-go that it’s going to give your puzzler a workout.
Existential queries abound in this one. For one, to whom is Faith Hill singing when she directly addresses “Christmas”? The baby Jesus? Why, he’s right there in his manger on the coffee table where he is every year. Santa Claus? He’ll be coming down the chimney without fail. The Platonic essence of Christmas? Well that just makes my brain hurt!
Further, what does it mean for one’s world to be “chee-anging”? Is that like “changing” but with more feeling? And what, exactly, is the singer “rearranging”? Garlands of tinsel?
These are just a few of the weighty questions the song poses, so I thank you for giving me the opportunity to ponder them every 74 minutes or so.
Well, I must sign off. I just know that any minute Maura Sullivan’s darling “Christmas Eve in Washington” will come on, and I must have my right hand free, for every time she sings “It’s here that freedom lives, and peace can stand her ground,” I place said hand squarely over my heart. It’s the least I can do for the troops.
Yours sincerely… and Merry Christmas!
28 Responses to “a christmas letter to clear channel”
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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Just snorted apple juice out my nose…whatta mess
How in the hell do you speak so creatively after juggling the girls, the hubby, the congregation and life in general this late in the evening?
I bow down before thee….
(wiping my eyes, catching my breath) You are so bad.
My hands have been poised over the comment box for a half a rendition of the Chipmunk song, so at a loss for words am I.
I’m not worthy.
this reminds me of when i worked retail. every month we got a different “mix” to play all month long. at the beginning of each month we were relieved to have new music to fold, re-hang, check out, and be cheerful to. by the end of the month we were SOOO hungering for new music!
and feliz navidad was one of the absolute worst because its so very repetitious.
one thing that helped me was to try to listen so intently to the folks i was serving in the store that it made it impossible to even hear the music—at least until someone complained that feliz navidad was playing yet again.
You mean they aren’t playing Pancho Claus in the rotation? What are we coming to?
What ppb said.
Guffaws galore here in the Gulf State!
I’ve never listened to Clear Channel, so I can’t comment on that. However, I can tell you that every single cover of “The Little Drummer Boy” makes me nuts. It’s playing in every public place I wander into. What to do? Become a recluse for the 21 days?? Yes! That’s it!
This is soooo good!
Joe Phillips, indeed!
Heh heh heh!
My dear, how I loved your bon mots concerning my most favorite thing about the holidays–”Lite” Christmas Music 24/7 care of our friends at CCC, Inc.! Nevertheless, I must say you failed to mention the most important aspect of this programming…the sage wisdom and relationship advice offered by evening DJ-ess, Delilah. I heard someone call her “unctuous” the other day. I don’t really know what that means, but it’s a pretty word, so I’m sure it was a compliment.
Thanks for the Christmas cheer!
What a hoot! Thanks for the laugh!
I would try to come up with some clever comment, but I stand amazed - and trumped!
Mamala, satire is my spiritual discipline, or didn’t you know?
Oh, NotShy! How could I forget the First Lady of the Clear Channel Christmas? I hope Santa isn’t watching, because I *so* want that hippopotamus this year.
This is fabulous.
I love the “Mary Did You Know” version, featuring Wynonna Judd and Kenny Rogers. I have linked to it on my site in my entry, “What Child Is This?”
Here in Southwest Virginia, we also have a station playing Christmas tunes only for the past month or so. It is really nice…
I’m with Mamala. You are a Wonder!
So funny! I’m hooting while drinking my coffee in the early morning dark.
Awesome post!
I must really live in Podunk, because I have no idea how I would get this thing of which you speak. And I’m glad, I’m really glad.
Brilliant!
okay, I was doing okay with keeping my laughter under wraps at the office UNTIL the “I wanna wish you a merry Christmas…then speak ENGLISH!”
You are hilarious. I want to be you when I grow up. please.
and I also want a hippopotamus. I’ll be settling for a water buffalo this year.
Our local station seems to have a deep, deep love for all Karen Carpenter Xmas songs. “Merry Christmas, Darling…” Ugh.
Oh I’m so glad you remembered the Hippopotamus song!
Alex, that song has one of my all-time favorite lines for sheer cheese:
“logs on the fire/fill me with desire [pause]
to see you and to say…”
That song is beautifully paired with the classic Kenny Rogers/Dolly Parton duet “Christmas to Remember,” which is about two people who hook up in Tahoe one Christmas. Ms. Parton sings about a “fast-talking lover and some slow burning wood” and I’m thinking, are we still talking about fireplaces?
ROFL… We made up our own words to “Feliz Navidad” because none of knew the correct words “Police Drive A lot” and “Puh-leese Not-a-Dot” among some of the entries…
My actual pet peeve is the swooping crooner who can’t seem to land ON a note in “Silent Night” (doesn’t matter who - I have not heard a good version of it yet…)
However, it was even funnier to see Santa Baby in the mall and the muzak was playing “Baby Baby Don’t Get Hooked On Me”.
I promise not to hum… (o)
Deb
This is so funny! Yes, yes, and yes! I wish I would have made it to the Wednesday Festival earlier when I was sick. I could have used this good laugh.
Thank you for the much needed laugh!