Okay, I love The Sound of Music as much as anyone of my generation does. And I think the score contains many delightful songs.
However.
What slaptard decided that the song “My Favorite Things” was a Christmas song? And, more importantly, why did everyone go along with this moron?
Here are the complete lyrics to the song, reproduced here without a shred of permission:
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens;
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens;
Brown paper packages tied up with strings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels;
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles;
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings;
These are a few of my favorite things.
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes;
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes;
Silver-white winters that melt into springs;
These are a few of my favorite things.
When the dog bites,
When the bee stings,
When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.
Notice any Christmas themes or imagery there? No? Why?
Because there isn’t any.
The song is sung in the show during a summer thunderstorm. Summer. Thunderstorm. Not a Yuletide item in sight.
So, please, can we stop including this song in Christmas music collections?
Thanks for your cooperation.
StarkRavingRay. Where we tackle the big issues.
Now I may be reaching here but warm woolen mittens; sleigh bells; and snowflakes are all associated with winter and some associate winter with – well you can see where I am going with this but I am stopping now before I say too much.
Resist Satan, Terri! I love winter as much as the next person. But if we allow winter to equal Christmas, all is lost!!
The most annoying thing about this song is that once it’s planted in your mind you are doomed. There’s no getting rid of it, it just goes ’round and ’round on an endless loop. Thanks, Ray.
I’ll take “…Favorite Things” over “Little Drummer Boy” any day, any season, any holiday. The latter is a depressing dirge and I don’t understand why it is allowed to live.
Wasn’t it some genericy department store ad at Christmas that co-opted this song years ago? If I associate it with Christmas at all its with a TV ad. For this store, apparently it is a song about shopping, which everyone knows is what Christmas is all about here in the good old US of A. Well, except for this last Christmas and unfortunately, many to come.
It is not the best song from the movie – its annoying and a bit – not much – like that annoying song that the school children sing in “The Birds”. And I agree with Sandra, it is one of those awful loops that gets stuck in your head and never lets go.
Mary Alice: I agree with you about Little Drummer Boy. That is a song that’s cool the first time you hear it when you’re a kid, but as an adult it’s just relentless with all those damned “ba rump-a-pum-pum”s. Give me strength.
But at least it’s actually about Christmas!
As a person who celebrates Christmas as the birth of Christ, I agree. It is a stretch. And I cry every time I see “The Little Drummer Boy.”