I saw this chart a few days ago and something really struck me. The songs we hear each Christmas — aside from the religious hymns — are almost all from the 1940’s and 50’s. The interesting point made at the bottom of the chart got me thinking. A lot of times we listen to the same music around Christmas because it produces a feeling of nostalgia and memories of a time when we were younger and the Christmas spirit meant more than a little break from the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season. A lot of the “new” Christmas music that isn’t the old religious standards, is merely nothing more than updated versions of these songs, rather than creating entirely new Christmas songs.
Now, if I’m being a bit more cynical — here’s how I read this.
Every year, the entertainment industry reinvigorates Christmas nostalgia so that people from the Baby Boomer generation will feel nostalgic for their childhood — and perhaps that Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle. Then, out of this reinvigorated nostalgia, they go out and spend all kinds of money on their kids/grandkids/neighborhood kids/intern pastors as the church they visit in the winter. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it like none other.
But I can’t help but wonder if it isn’t all a big ploy to get more people in the “Christmas spirit” which might as well be synonymous with “the mood to spend money”. I can’t figure out exactly why I am so disturbed by this graph.
Perhaps, it’s just a tactic to honestly get everyone in the Christmas spirit of gathering together with family and friends and honoring the faith traditions that celebrate around Christmas. But I highly doubt it. Whenever there is the kind of money at stake that there is each Christmas, big companies will beg, cheat, lie, steal — even, potentially, manipulate through music.
After writing this, I realize this could make me the biggest Scrooge that you know, which is certainly not my intent. I just think it’s interesting the way in which Christmas music operates in our culture, pumped through the stores earlier and earlier each year.
And I think it’s really beneficial to be aware of the way in which music impacts the way we think.
Cheers,
Eric