Were you pleased to
be working on a Christmas album?
Initially, I was yes. I have very fond memories of the
family Christmas: chef’s turkey with all the trimmings, large stacks of
presents, Mother abusing carollers, Aunt Agatha starting on the port early and
claiming Jesus was a communist, wonderful stuff. And of course, the music was
such an integral part of the whole affair. Going to church and belting out all
the traditional carols at the top of our voice was as much a part of Christmas
as watching my father try and put his hand on nanny’s thigh during the Queen’s
speech. So I assumed the recording of a Christmas album would be a joyous
affair.
But it wasn’t?
Well, it wasn’t Christmas as I knew it let’s put it that way.
Silent Night has always been
something of a personal favourite so I was disappointed to discover most of the
lyrics were replaced with a tedious speech from Phil Spector telling us all how
wonderful he thought his album was. And it echoed. His speech had echo effects
on it which I thought was… unnecessary.
But then “unnecessary”
describes Spector’s production technique extremely well.
Look one doesn’t like to criticise when one is such a
musical ignoramus but even a humble studio cleaner such as myself could tell
that the first layer of string overdubs was probably enough and the second was
going too far.
You feel it ruined
great Christmas classics?
I’m not sure I’d call them Christmas classics if I’m pressed
to express an opinion. I know there is a special place in the collective bosom
of the United States for Frosty the
Snowman but for an Englishman such as myself, it’s little more than an advertising
jingle. The same can be said for Winter
Wonderland and Santa Claus is Coming
To Town. As for I saw Mummy kissing
Santa Claus- well…. Let’s just say that I didn’t need to hear any of those
particular songs once, let alone constantly repeated as more effects were being
applied.
How would you have
changed things?
Well, I would have brought in the choir of Kings College, placed
them safely in the hands of an experienced choirmaster and provided them with a
repertoire of traditional Christmas Carols which drew inspiration from the
nativity and not the antics of characters manufactured from frozen water. As for
Father Christmas or Santa Claus as our American cousins insist on calling
him, I honestly see no need for him to have any part in the proceedings at all,
let alone be commemorated in song form. And what business he has kissing
maternal parents of an evening is totally beyond me. I’m not at all comfortable
with the idea that he travels from home to home taking liberties with the lady
of the house at every stop.
I think the
implication is that the child actually failed to notice their father had
dressed up as-
I honestly have no interest I’m sorry. I regard any moment,
no matter how fleeting, spent considering the lyrics of that song to be time
wasted that can never be retrieved. I think we should move on.
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