Closing Thoughts on 2023, in Which I Wax Philosophic About Writing and Christmas Songs

Today’s blog is mostly about Christmas music, but first, some thoughts on writing as I write my way out of 2023…..

I put my arithmetickin’ skills to the test earlier today and estimated that I’ve probably written somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 million words as a professional journalist, writer, and author. That’s based on 30-odd years of writing news articles, fiction, essays and blogs that made it into publication. During many of those years I only wrote during working hours, so call it 250 or so working days a year over that stretch, at a couple thousand words a day, minimum.

Forgetting the fact that I now write pretty much every day as a free-lancer, I’m happy to round the figure off to 15 million words.

If you want to know how many words that is, the novel I wrote a few years ago (Voodoo Hideaway, buy it here!) came in at just shy of 100,000 words. It’s a 360-page novel – a decent size, and easily the longest thing I have ever written. But it represents less than 1% of my total output.

This is my way of saying that 15 million words is a whole lot of words.

Of those 15 million words, I am very proud of about 150,000 of them in finished form, or roughly 1% of the total. What I mean by “finished form” is that those 150,000 words belong to specific articles, essays or works of fiction that I really think came out good, the way I wanted them to. When I re-read those pieces now, I think to myself, “Hey, that’s pretty damn good. Those stories will stand the test of time. The writing holds up, and so do the insights behind the writing. Yay me!”

I bring this up because it occurs to me that feeling really good about 1% of your professional output seems sad on the face of it. It would be like a plumber saying: “Hey, I’m really proud of 1% of the drains I’ve fixed!”

But I don’t look at it that way. I’m just happy that at least some of my work lived up to the impossibly high standards I set for myself as a writer. The vast majority of what I write, frankly, is instantly disposable and forgettable. It’s here and gone and it won’t change a thing and nobody will remember it or even care.

It’s not that all this stuff isn’t “good” in its own way. It’s perfectly fine in it’s own way, like a nice haircut is fine in its own way, or a warm bowl of oatmeal.

It would be different if I were strictly a fiction writer. But most of what I’ve written is non-fiction – news articles and the like. These things just don’t have a very long shelf life. Works of fiction can and should endure long after publication. But I have a fairly small body of work when it comes to fiction, which could be something I regret, I don’t know.

Anyway.

As I sit here at the tail end of 2023, a transitional year in my life if ever there was one, I wonder whether anything I ever write again will have much of an impact on me or anyone else. I feel like that ship has sailed. Don’t ask me why.

I am a very busy writer these days, busy busy busy, every day filled with writing and rewriting and writing again – just about all of it bound for the Internet, just about all of it as disposable as a wet paper towel.

If I’m being honest, I’ve lost the passion I once had for writing. It’s merely a paycheck anymore, a means to a financial end. Will I ever really, really care about it anymore? That’s an open question that I don’t have an answer for right now.

Maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way. Maybe I need to remember the 1% I’m really proud of and not the other 99%. We’ll see how it goes. For now, there’s a blog to cough out…

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In my last blog, I wrote that I would devote my final blogs of 2023 to the gift of music, in the holiday spirit. It was basically my way of saying that I don’t really care enough to produce an original blog, so I’ll just make up something about music.

Today’s musical theme is holiday music, which mainly means Christmas music. I love Christmas music. Rather, I love the idea of Christmas music, and how the season has inspired a lot of very good songwriters and composers to compose a lot of very good songs. Christmas songs stir ancient memories inside me, as they do with so many others.

The same songs my parents played when I was a wee one are just as relevant today, more than half-a-century later. Today, our family turns on Christmas music during the season, whether it’s sitting around the house by the tree, or out in the car looking at all the Christmas lights.

I’m not sure I have a favorite Christmas song. Oh, that’s not true. I have a couple, I suppose: “The Christmas Song,” and “Fairytale of New York.” The former is a standard about chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The latter is an 80s-era punk/drunk anthem recorded by The Pogues and written and sung by the legendary Shane McGowan, who recently departed this mortal coil at the age of 65, which is much longer than many might have predicted.

So while I contemplate my future as a writer, and bid adieu to the year that was, here’s a list of my 9 favorite Christmas songs, in no particular order.

Why 9?

Why not??!!!!

I don’t know, I just chose 9 as a nice, clean, cut-off point. I could list 40, easily. But I don’t want to type out 40 song titles, so…..

Each song includes the composer/songwriter in parentheses and a YouTube link for your listening pleasure. I’m more or less attached to the standards I grew up on. Sorry, Mariah…..

Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (J.S. Bach): I always loved this tune on acoustic guitar. A lovely melody.

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Hugh Martin): I chose the Ella Fitzgerald version, because Ella put the magic into everything she sang.

Fairytale of New York (Shane McGowan and Jem Finer): I’m not sure what the highlight of this magnificent song is for me, but I’m guessing it’s probably the vocal by the late Kirsty MacColl, who died swimming in a designated diving area in Mexico in 2000, while saving her sons from a motorboat that wasn’t supposed to be in those waters.

Silent Night (Franz Xaver Gruber and Joseph Mohr): I have no idea if this is the most sung Christmas song ever. If I were to guess, I’d guess it is.

Linus and Lucy (Vince Guaraldi): For a certain generation of American kids, this song from the mid-1960s Charlie Brown TV show is Instant Christmas.

Sleigh Ride (Leroy Anderson): The Ronettes version, of course.

What Child is This?  (lyrics by William Chatterton Dix): The tune is borrowed from “Greensleeves,” another lovely melody. Love the string versions.

The Christmas Song (Robert Wells and Mel Torme): Our mother had the Nat King Cole Christmas album, and it got played every Christmas when I was a kid, and it always reminds me of her, and those magical childhood Christmases, when we kids found it hard to sleep at night…..

Winter Wonderland (Felix Bernard and lyricist Richard Bernhard): A song just begging to get the jazz treatment. The YouTube version here is from a Saturday Night Live episode from around 1975, featuring cast member Garret Morris on lead vocals and Candace Bergen, Jane Curtin, Laraine Newman and Gilda Radner on backing vocals, followed by Chevy Chase, John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd. A brilliant performance, and I have no idea why the video of it cannot be found on YouTube. But there is this TikTok version with video.

Note: The photo is of me at a book signing party a few years ago. Putting on my best Serious Author face, and failing….