Book reviews, art, gaming, Objectivism and thoughts on other topics as they occur.

Dec 15, 2005

Chipmunks and Hippopotamuses

I am rapidly nearing critical mass on Christmas song repitition, but while I'm still enjoying them I have to say my two favorite songs (songs, not instrumental pieces) are "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" and "Please, Christmas, Don't Be Late"--yes, the one performed by the Chipmunks.

The reason I like those songs, although they don't possess a lot of artistic merit, is that they are lively, upbeat, clever, and selfishly benevolent.

Unlike travesties such as "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "Frosty the Snowman", the former of which contains the saddest bunch of fashion-driven hypocritical reindeer imaginable ("Frosty" is just STUPID), the songs I like are about children engaged in activities I can actually admire.

Youngsters discovering values and pursuing them, even if those values are a bit absurd, like a pet hippo, or trivial, like Alvin's hula hoop, are always going to be unequivocally adorable in my book.

And, anyway, why not a hippopotamus? When I was a small child, I had an elephant.

Given, it was stuffed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Heh, I had "Little Drummer Boy" running through my head most of Tuesday - specifically the Bing Crosby/David Bowie version. The Boss of my part-time job insists on keeping the store radio on 24 hour christmas programing. Blech.

Anonymous said...

I also LOVE the hippo song. I just heard it on the radio the other day - one of those crazy stations that plays Christmas music 24/7 from Thanksgiving onward.

It's a very silly song, and I like the voice of the singer.