Christmas Lyrics

My husband has an endearing/sometimes annoying habit (mostly endearing) of picking a song - usually Christmas or Amazing Grace or Domicile On The Place or Oklahoma - his repertoire is quite limited. He'll sing the line of the song, but put another song's lyrics in instead. So, We Three Kings tune is sung, but the lyrics are Amazing Grace - and he embellishes and adds/subtracts his own language as alternative to the established lyrics.

In short - he is a music rule breaker. But I pass to remember it's quite clever - we are made for each other, after all.

Yesterday, on the effort to downtown Miami, we got in a boisterous exchange regarding the lyrics to "Let It Snow".

My husband thought that the pair in the sung were walking somewhere outside in the snow together, which is apparently wrong - he cannot have listened correctly to the lyrics. And so we started."Oh the conditions outside is frightful,And the flame is so delightful"

"I don't believe there's a fire outside unless they're homeless people, sweetie."

"Sure - they could be walking home after being somewhere that there WAS a fire."

"No," I say, "it's a present tense fire, not past tense."

"You're such a literalist" he says.

I toss off the idea that she should not be letting her boyfriend drive plate in the snow - he'll get in an accident. Especially since the call was scripted in 1945 and the roads were usually windy two lanes (no super highways back then).

My husband says, "How do you know they're not married?"

I say, "Because he's going home after their date. If they're married that's pretty strange behavior."

He says, "Maybe they're at his family and SHE has to walk home."

Me - "Oh - that couldn't be in the 1940's. That would go against all established ideas at the sentence of the roles of women and men. It would be unlawful for her to go to his house, and he could never let her walk home only in a storm - you recognise that. What a dim idea! And yet if there was a lump in the 1940's that would do that way (and I'm sure there were), it would not be a characteristic of a widely known, popular song. The call would shine the better mores of the time, not the worst ones."

He reluctantly agrees.

He eventually got me, though. "How do you know he's driving a car home? Maybe he's walking?"

Aha. Let's see the lyrics"And since we've no space to go,Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!It doesn't show signs of stopping,And I've brought some corn for popping,The lights are turned way down lowLet it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!When we finally kiss goodnight,How I hate going out in the storm,But if you actually make me tight,All the way home I'll be warm.The fire is slowly dyingAnd my dear, we're still goodbyeing,But as tenacious as you know me so,Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!"

Darn. He's right - there's no acknowledgment of a car. He's probably walking home in a little town. Sigh - the little towns of 1945 before huge thick ribbons of bland, banal highways connected everyone everywhere.

But they're not married, obviously.

And she's not walking home, it's him, of course.

And they're not walking together (he thought since she was keeping him tight all the way home he'd be warm - that they were walking together. Really clueless.)

My husband has some wonderful talents, but musical ability, both tonal and lyrical, is not one of them. But he certainly keeps me laughing and we sure get a big time discussing these oh-so-important subjects.