My Top 5 Non-Traditional Christmas Songs
I love all forms of Christmas music — traditional/religious carols and poppy secular songs alike. It was too difficult to make a Top 5 list that drew from the entire Christmas songbook, so here are the poppy ones first.
5. ‘The Little Drummer Boy’/’Peace on Earth,’ Bing Crosby and David Bowie
OK, so this one is pretty much traditional as most people would define it, but I think the fact that it’s a David Bowie and Bing Crosby duet, complete with cheesy banter at the beginning, puts it into post-modern pop territory. For a while, you think Crosby is going to overpower Bowie, but then the Thin White Duke pipes up, and … wow, that’s some beautiful harmonizing there.
From as early as I can remember, “The Little Drummer Boy” has always gotten to me. There’s something I’ve always found moving about stories like the drummer boy’s — people of modest means offering up all they have. Blah blah blah.
