Skip to main content

The Twelve Days of Christmas, Straight No Chaser

Humor seems scarce in most music. Humor depends on the unexpected, on incongruity, and music is literally based on harmony.  Somehow Straight No Chaser twists our musical expectations and familiarity to create this hilarious mashup of some of our favorite Christmas carols. Recently Weezer has released a cover of Africa that is climbing the charts and my first reaction on hearing it is to think of Straight No Chaser. One of the disc jockeys on WMMX noted the same.

Straight No Chaser was an a capella group at a Big 10 college (Michigan?) and someone put this performance which I believe united current and alumni members on YouTube. Ultimately this proved so popular that the group came together professionally and tours the country. So they are perhaps on of the early music internet success stories.  I happened to get free tickets (coincidentally from the same disc jockey mentioned above) to see them in Baltimore. No Twelve Days since it was summer time, but they really are an amazing talent.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Finnegan's Wake -- performed by the Clancy Brothers

This is a rollicking fun song. I think my favorite rendition is a live rendition with the Clancy Brothers where one of them comes out on the stage and says "We're going to do Finnegan's wake but before we start Tommy is going to read the entire novel by James Joyce." Then Tommy starts reading what sounds like gibberish and I had to check that this is indeed how the novel starts!

Danse Macabre, by Saint-Saens

My mother had a record with this and the Russian Sailor's Dance and a few other orchestral dances on it but this was definitely my favorite.  With that name how could it not be?  There's a little interlude in Disney's Fantasia where they talk about how some music is representational -- it's supposed to directly suggest a scene.  I always think of this as the epitome of such music.  The sound's of the bone clanking and the cock crowing at the end. It was only recently since I've taken up ballroom dancing that I see it as a very fast waltz.   The energy it would take to dance so fast and so long.  Even the dead would be exhausted at the end.

Jupiter, by Gustav Holst

When I went to the planetarium at the Franklin Institute as a boy, the background music that played until the presentation began was The Planets by Gustav Holst.  So it brings back fond memories of days spent exploring the museum.  One of the more amusing exhibits was an exhibit where you could play tic-tac-toe against a machine.  It was based purely on relays and the best part about it was that you could cheat.  If you pushed two buttons simultaneously you could get two X's on your first turn and and with that advantage you can win!