Christmas: Kid Gloves Removed

Cheers to anyone who can enjoy the Christmas season without a little anxiety.

Every Christmas I feel a little anxiety, but not caused from current, real-time dilemmas or holiday stress. I traced my feelings to their beginnings and ended up in my youth, somewhere between age 8 and 12.  I call it kid-worries, youthful uneasiness or anxiety lite because kids do not have much to fret about at Christmas compared to adults, unless they have not been good.  And I got a lump of coal in my stocking for Christmas once (although I did receive some gifts that year), so I know how that feels.

Let me try to explain what I mean by kid-worries.  Growing up, I have great memories of anticipating Christmas.  There were four main kid adventures to Christmas prep:  setting up the tree and hanging ornaments, decorating outside, setting up the train set, and gift wrapping.  Each was its own kid-tradition with various feats that you had to grow into in order to accomplish. The older you got, the more you could take part.

Christmas at our house was the moist, burning lint, slightly potpourri-fragrant smell of the game room in winter with our baseboard electric heaters drying mittens and shoes; the static shocks of touching everything metal; watching holiday cartoon specials; secretively planning gifts; John Denver and Kenny Rogers eight-tracks and festive radio favorites on the stereo as we decorated; the sight of everything changing.  Christmas was a transformation, a real production at our house.

So I have tried to examine why the kid-worries come back this time of year, and I am naming the source as music, more specifically, Christmas carols.  Not just any carols, but what I call adult-themed carols (not that kind of adult theme) which bring up images that concern a kid. 

For me, there are three types of carols:  religious carols (“Silent Night”, “O Come Emmanuel”), kid-friendly carols (“Jingle Bells”, “Frosty the Snowman”) and adult-themed carols (“Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire…”). Kid carols were easy to learn and relate to; they were fun, fantastic and helped reinforce the magic of the season.  Religious carols had a deeper meaning that Christians could relate to; they reminded us that Christmas was about preparation for the miracle of the birth of Jesus.  Adult carols were somewhat familiar, but somewhat inscrutable as far as lyrics went; they had titles that kids understood, but lyrics that could also worry a kid.

Maybe I was an oddball, but I paid attention to carol lyrics. I think it was because I felt like they were a puzzle piece to understanding what Christmas would be like for me when I was grown-up, like I needed to know the carols for later in life to understand the significance of what was going on.

Adult carols are troublesome to kids because they hint that the holidays, which are fun and all about presents and play as a kid, get more complicated when you are grown up. I always knew I would grow up, go to college and be on my own; I trusted that growing up would be fun and not produce anxiety.  But how does a kid resolve these issues brought up in Christmas lyrics?

Let me give you four examples. “Let It Snow” is a romantic carol about being with a significant other at Christmas. Kids do not relate well to this. This brings up insecurities like how to reconcile being with a girlfriend and your family at the same time, and how would you choose between them? “White Christmas” has the line ‘just like the ones I used to know’. As a kid I remember thinking, ‘you mean there might be Christmases (with regularity) that are not white (I grew up in Pennsylvania)?’ If so, what kind of Christmas is that (welcome to Florida) and why would I have to put up with it? In “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas“, we hear “troubles will be far away”, but this only sounds like a temporary escape. Why do I need Christmas as an escape from daily grown-up life? Or “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”…‘you can count on me’. This carol seems to send the message that it takes quite an effort to get home to visit for the holidays. Why would that ever be the case?

It is not hard to see why kids could get the wrong idea about Christmas from the adult perspective. From these songs a kid could catch the Peter Pan syndrome and think:  what kind of world is the grown-up world where everything is turned upside-down, and what can I do to avoid it? Why would I want a life without white Christmases, where I have to fight to get home for the holidays, have to decide whether I spend it with my girlfriend or my family, and use Christmas as a break from my troubles? A kid cannot help but think, with sincerity: what will I have in my future life to equip me to cope with the adult world and compensate me for this wrecked tradition and unfortunate, imminent reality?

Christmas as an adult is complicated because it is not a single, solitary life anymore living the ideal Christmas fantasy. Instead, a kid’s life becomes an adult’s who is also a fiancée, a spouse and or a father or mother, where playing in the snow gives way to slogging off to work. It is too easy to get caught up in providing a memorable Christmas for others that it becomes a time of stress about how to afford Christmas, plan for travel, cook and bake ,and be mindful of Jesus as the genesis of the season.

It is easy, even as a kid, to get overwhelmed with the complexity of Christmas, both on the logistical day-to-day, and emotional levels. We must remember kids pick up on this; they can see when adults fake it. Kids need to understand that not everything is merry, and the complexity can be understood, discussed and accepted, and not buried.

As a fairly new parent I want to challenge myself, when the time comes, with reframing Christmas from the adult perspective for my child in a way that celebrates adulthood at Christmas, not frustrates it. I want to convey the magic that adults get to share in, the things to look forward to, and how my understanding as a Catholic has grown over the years to help me appreciate the mystery behind my religious roots and the meaning of Christmas.

Being a grown-up at Christmas is not a bad thing. There are days when I wonder how I got here, and I definitely am still looking for the manual that lead me to believe I could handle adulthood the way the Christmas carols depicted it. I think the key is to have a part of you that still a little boy, still believes in Santa and never grows up. And there is nothing wrong with going to bed wishing for a snow day either.

Single Serving Music

“Tyler, you are by far the most interesting single-serving friend I have ever met.”  ~ Narrator (Ed Norton Jr.) in Fight Club

Elvis and other early rock-and-roll singers of the ’50s offered their music in bite-sized portions via the record single.  These offerings had one song on each side, with the primary hit on the top of the record, A-side, and a ‘lesser’ known song on the bottom, B-side.  In the 1960s, the release of singles evolved into a full record release, where artists would put six or more songs on a record.  The Rolling Stones are a good example of a band that started out releasing music in singles format, and ended up producing albums. Ten to twelve songs became the standard record heft, which is still common today. However, since the rise in popularity of all things i from A—iPod, iPhone, iTunes—there has been more of an emphasis on the rock-and-roll single again.

Digital and internet marketing has probed, as a composition and consumer product, what music is. Inherent in this discussion is the conflict:  art versus commodity. Rock music, like many other artistic endeavors, is both—at least for musicians who desire to make a living from their music. Musicians must have an internal conflict of offering their music piece meal, that is song by song, versus in album format. As convenient, inexpensive and potentially beneficial to hook new listeners, I lobby against marketing the single.

To me, a song’s meaning and power is twofold:  as a composition on an individual unit scale, and as part of a composition of other songs on a record album. To excise a song from its full context destroys a significant part of its value, and renders it a completely commercial construction. My belief is if a song was meant to be understood and enjoyed as a stand-alone composition, it would be offered as such; there would be no album, no name or cover art. But songs relate to something—their creator, current society, its influences—and they record and tell stories.

Clearly the holistic relationship of the parts-to-whole matters or groups would not give an album, or more specifically, would not give it a name that shares a specific track’s name. A singer that has a song and album share a title must feel differently, maybe that the title track has a very strong identity that shapes or dominates the record. Either way, they are aware the music exists in reference to itelf as a singlular song, and in relation to the other songs contributing to a whole, as part of an album.

The malleable format of music recording has played with the boundaries of the container of music.  From A and B-sides, we grew to album sides whether on vinyl, eight-track or cassette. The format for distribution required a physical break in the music, and a flipping over of the medium to listen to the other half.  CDs changed that: all songs played continously from beginning to end, unless there were two discs.  Maybe sometime we will be able to burn 500 minutes on a CD and two discs will become one.  No matter. The musician / artist crafts their message with the medium taken into account.

Single song sales disrupt the art of the album, even if you can purchase the album as a whole. To primarily market music as single song pieces is a fundamental shift from selling an album. Buying an album is a commitment, a statement that you are trying something out and want to listen to an musical artist’s message.  Whereas, buying a single song means nothing; it is shallow, disposable, a trivial taste test. The phrase I’ll try anything for a dollar comes to mind.

When someone scans an iPod and sees “Karma Kameleon” it can easily be explained away, rather than if you found Culture Club’s entire Colour By Numbers album loaded. There is judgement involved.  One song means nothing; ten, however, do. When you buy an album, you buy in to the artist.

Or maybe the bite size sample of one song redefines what it means to be a fan of a band. Maybe owning the equivalent of one album means you are a fan, whereas in the past, you wanted everything ever released to prove your allegiance.

Single song purchases allow some music to be more accessible. It was tough to part with your cash for an entire album of an ’80s one-hit-wonder; but for a buck, you could cherry-pick the one nugget worth anything (“Take On Me”) and have that gem forever without the baggage of possessing the entire album (a-ha’s Hunting High and Low).

This is all moot, however, because songs matter in their context and should not be allowed to be cut-and-pasted so easily. There is a sanctity for the music album that is ignored with the iTunes music purchase model. You may be able to buy an entire album, but it is set up around single servings.

The problems are three. First, the integrity of the album as a composition is destroyed, which is the context in which the musician intended you to listen to the music. Songs are meant to fit into an album, a collection of related songs, and they are to be listened to together. To buy one song is to listen to the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: you may get the pop nugget everyone knows, but you don’t get the artist or the idea behind the composition, or his music. And this is a lot of lost meaning and artistry.

Second, song popularity becomes a chicken-or-egg scenario. Do people listen to the music and buy based on popularity, or does the music offering format determine what is purchased? Music albums were released and the more popular songs were requested on radio stations. Then individual songs were released before the album was available, driving up interest in the album. Heavy play meant more sales of the album.

If the album format is done away with commercially, and only three songs are offered for purchase (from what would have been a ten song album), how are those determined? The commercial format then becomes Darwinistic, affecting which songs become popular. In the past this did not matter because all interest drove album sales, but now it is every song for itself. The rest of the album may not even hit the internet for sales because no one gets to hear the other seven songs to judge their quality.

Third, determining which songs are good or more specifically which will be popular is very, very difficult. If it were easy to judge talent, every record label would have all hits and no misses. The bands themselves are notorious for not knowing what will hit big. U2′s song “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me”, a catchy pop hit used in the Batman Forever soundtrack was a supposed throw-away from the Zooropa album sessions. This is one of dozens of examples. Some bands even loath when certain songs they hate hit it big. REM dislikes performing “The One I Love”, quite possibly their most popular song.

As a corollary to this: buying song-by-song precludes the possibility of discovering a song on an album the general public has not discovered or does not find popular. Many friends of mine enjoy finding songs that are better than the ones released or receiving heavy play on the radio or internet [see previous paragraph]. You get a chance to discover it, digest it without public hooplah, and own it. I think most albums I own have better songs than the ones that became popular. Using REM as a case study again, “Country Feedback” is a great song on Out of Time, and one of the group’s favorites. They love playing it live, but most people would only know and request ”Losing My Religion”, “The Radio Song” or “Shiny Happy People”.

Artistically, the argument is huge. What would any of the great concept albums be—The Who’s Tommy, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Radiohead’s Ok Computer—without the context of the other songs to tell the story? The non-popular songs on any album are not useless filler; they are not the water chestnuts in your Chicken and Snow Peas over sticky rice.

Where does this take us? My main thesis is that, until artists come out publicly and release music as single songs, i.e. do away with music in album format, songs should be sold by the bunch naturally. The format of music releases may already be in flux, just as Radiohead offered an album on the internet under the premise the fans will assign it value and pay accordingly. Some songs are already only available for purchase as singles.

It will be interesting to see if things come full circle and we go back to single-focused music releases. One thing is certain: old schools of organization and marketing and new schools of thought are colliding, which will produce something probably none of us have seen. Stay tuned…pun intended, of course.

My MJ Tribute

In the fall of 1996 I was fortunate enough to study abroad in Finland for a semester. Immersed in an international program, I was the only one from my school, and in fact, I knew only one person outside the U.S. prior to my trip, and that was a student from Finland who had studied at Virginia the previous semester.  Everything about the experiences that semsester were enlightening, particularly on an individual level.  Those who have traveled alone know what I mean.  To travel by yourself is amazing and the achievement of an ideal:  absolute freedom to satisfy wanderlust, to stroll or sprint, follow a program or deviate as needed.  At the same time, traveling alone is a struggle:  no companionship emotionally or physically, no shared memory, no corroboration, no perspective via foil. Regardless of the collegial atmosphere at the university, much of what happened, even socially, was recorded in memory on a personal, singular level.

I lived with another Finn, with limited access to media.  It was 1996:  email was only available at the school computer banks. Altough cell phones were everywhere in Finland, I was tethered to a land line to call home at a mercenary rate I could ill afford.  I penned many letters to my girlfriend back in the States. And on t.v. I remember watching four things given our limited reception in the dorm:  Baywatch, “The Bold and the Beautiful” soap opera, the movie “Leaving Las Vegas”, and European MTV. Anything familiar was a comfort, even a bastardized version of what I knew to be MTV. 

When the right mix of lyrics, melody and mood come together, music has an undeniable way of etching memories. Many songs composed the soundtrack to my semester, from “E-Bow the Letter” on REM’s underappreciated “New Adventures in Hi Fi” to “Wannabe” from the cultural phenomenon, the Spice Girls.  One that stood out was “Stranger in Moscow” by Michael Jackson.

By late 1996, Michael Jackson had fallen out of favor in the U.S. and it had been years since I had seen a Jackson video.  Europe is far more forgiving in respect to social transgressions of public figures, so MJ was still in rotation; simply put, Michael Jackson on MTV was a gift to a lobo solo in the Finland hinterland.

“Stranger in Moscow” resonated with me.  It helped that the song was not released in the U.S. until later, further cementing its significance. The whole composition hit me in perfect stride at the right time of my life. It was as if Michael wrote the song for me, and it helped me through this time of exhilarated individual growth and extreme isolation.

Some people have a tough time divorcing the eccentricities from the artist, but to me Michael Jackson was all art.  The phrase “go big or don’t go at all” comes to mind when I think of his work.  He went big. His music encapsulated American life of the time, our zeitgeist. He was a master collaborator, someone who wanted to work with the biggest stars, but not for association, for synergy. Michael Jackson’s creative polar opposite would be George Steinbrenner, who collected the biggest talents like baseball cards with no thought to the composition.  Michael had it all worked out.

It sounds cliche, but when Michael Jackson died last week, a part of my childhood died, too.  I was stunned; it gave me goose bumps.  I never sought his replica jackets or glittered gloves as a kid, but I own Thriller on vinyl and felt he was a truly unique artist.  God gives everyone talent, but to some he gives a little more, and Michael Jackson had it in spades.  As my wife pointed out, the MJ of my childhood died a long time ago.  True.  But I believe he still had more songs in him, and that loss of even one more potential masterpiece is what makes me sad.  Michael, thanks being my cultural compass when I was lost:  “How does it feel/When you’re alone/And cold inside”…