More Holiday Music - Top Secular Christmas Songs

In choral music, we often discuss the text as either "sacred" or "secular." Sacred texts are religious in nature, whether chanting the Qu'ran, singing a Hebrew Psalm, or performing a Christian Gloria. Secular lyrics are everything else--songs about love, cars, pizza, you name it. So it sounds somewhat contradictory to refer to "secular Christmas songs." However, Christmas is, for better or worse, as much a cultural holiday as it is a religious one. Thus, there are many songs about Christmas that never mention Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. Here are my top ten, in reverse order:

10. White Christmas - a dreamy, chromatic melody, written by a Jewish songwriter named Irving Berlin that was at one time the single most recorded song in history

9. It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - just a fun tune about how our environment changes as the wreaths and lights go up

8. I'll Be Home for Christmas - a sad song about being away from loved ones during the holidays (the punchline is "if only in my dreams")

7. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland staring longingly out a window--beautifully poignant

6. Santa Claus Is Coming to Town - you better watch out!

5. We Wish You a Merry Christmas - a great old English song that is about as cheerful as they come, but does anybody really like "figgy pudding"?

4. The Christmas Song - you probably know it as "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire..." - one of the jazziest Christmas songs of all, with great chord changes to boot!

3. Silver Bells - the city dresses up for Christmas

2. The Twelve Days of Christmas - every year the newscasts tell us that the cost of the twelve days has gone up yet again (I guess it has to do with the price of gold and poultry)

1. Christmas Time Is Here - from the Charlie Brown special--such a lovely melody and hip chords--this one is my all-time favorite!

NEXT TIME - Top Sacred Christmas Songs