ArcaMax

Can we please stop pimping the carols?

Carols are just fine the way they were written -- and particularly fine the way Nat King Cole sang them.

They have, often enough, words that fall on the notes. They have a recognizable tune, usually beautiful. They do not need to swing, sway or swagger any more than they have done these past few decades or, in some cases, centuries, because obviously they were catchy enough to become part of the holiday canon.

And yet it seems many singers have a meth-like addiction to frou-frouing these famous songs beyond recognition. They'll sing them to the wrong beat, croon them extra-coyly or -- the Bernese mountain dog of all my pet peeves -- add about 3,879,677 notes between "ho-" and "-ly."

It's like adding whipped cream, nutmeg, a candy cane, a mini umbrella, a shot of chocolate and a dozen lug nuts to a mug of eggnog.

"What child is this?" begins the great "Greensleeves." But half the time you hear it, the real question is, "What SONG is this? It sort of sounds familiar, but since when did they add maracas? Or, for that matter, a kazoo?"

The problem seems to be that, with an infinite number of Christmas albums playing a very finite number of Christmas favorites, performers feel their version must scream, "THIS IS MY PERSONAL AND UNIQUE INTERPRETATION. I AM AN ARTIST!"

Yeah. And I am running out of the grocery store because your artistic vision just came on again.

It feels like it's a contest to see who can leave in the least amount of the beloved song. And in its place? Oodles of moaning ooohs. It's a "Sexual Healing" Christmas, Charlie Brown!

My friend Doug Nervik -- RIP -- used to lead a gaggle of us on a yearly caroling walk through Manhattan's slightly sordid East Village. We'd sing the old favorites pretty faithfully, and hardened New Yorkers would open their windows and wave to us. Strangers would join us to tag and sing along. The homeless shelter where we always ended the night would be filled with guys in the linoleum-tiled rec room who first ignored us, then tapped their toes, then sang along and finally bear-hugged each and every one of us as we left the rec room, tears streaming down all our faces.

Carols are all about connecting. To each other. To the past. To something big.

When singers sling a song further and further from its roots, they are making what was universal now about themselves. That can be fantastic in the hands of a master -- Picasso painting a guitar. Or it can be cataclysmic -- Jessica and Ashlee Simpson singing "The Little Drummer Boy," which achieved the #1 spot on Rolling Stone's 20 Worst Christmas Songs of All Time list: "Each 'pa-rum-pa pum-pum' is another drop in their musical waterboarding."

The greatness of carols is that, unlike, say, T-Pain's "I'm 'n Luv (wit a Stripper)," these are the few songs all of us know the words to. (Including me -- and I'm Jewish!) We can sit around the spinet, piano or iPhone and sing together.

So here's a plea to keep "Jingle Bells" just jingling along, and for God's sake to speed up the warbling doldrums so many Santa songs have become. Because otherwise, someday carols could go the way of the national anthem.

And that's nothing to sing about.

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Lenore Skenazy is president of Let Grow, a contributing writer at Reason.com, and author of "Has the World Gone Skenazy?" To learn more about Lenore Skenazy (Lskenazy@yahoo.com) and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

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