How top holiday songs are created; Students’ thoughts on Christmas music

     Christmas music gets us into the Christmas spirit. How are these songs made?

      According to Spotify, Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You,” is the top Christmas song. The song was written and produced by Walter Afanasieff and herself in 1994, according to Wikipedia. Carey’s then-husband proposed the idea of writing a Christmas-themed album.

     In an interview with Billboard Afanasieff explains how it is written: “It was always the same sort of system with us. We would write the nucleus of the song, and then some of the words were there as we finished writing it. I started playing some rock ‘n’ roll piano and started boogie woogie-ing my left hand, and that inspired Mariah to come up with the melodic ‘I don’t want a lot for Christmas.’ And then we started singing and playing around with this rock ‘n’ roll boogie song, which immediately came out to be the nucleus of what would end up being ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,’” he says. “It was an easier song to write than some of the other ones. It was very formulaic, with not a lot of chord changes. I tried to make it a little more unique, putting in some special chords that you really don’t hear a lot of, which made it unique and special.” According to the New York Post, it took Carey and Afanasieff 15 minutes to write the song.

     The song “Jingle Bells,” written by James Lord Pierpont in 1857, and originally published under the name “One Horse Open Sleigh,” was never intended to have an association with Christmas, according to Wikipedia. A few years after it was published, it was performed by Johnny Pell in Ordway Hall, popularizing it as a Christmas song. Its first recording was in 1889, believed to be the first Christmas record. The lyrics of the song are similar to many other sleigh riding songs at the time. Researcher Kyna Hamill says “Everything about the song is churned out and copied from other people and lines from other songs—there’s nothing original about it.”

     North Harford science teacher, Mr. Brady Green says he listens to “the classics for Christmas music.” He decorated for Christmas before Thanksgiving, this year. “We usually decorate on Black Friday. [It’s] family tradition.”

     “I start listening like the week of Thanksgiving,” sophomore Stephanie Erisman says. “I like to get in the Christmas spirit early.”

     “I love Christmas music because it makes me happier,” sophomore Sierra Weaver says. “It’s all about loving and accepting people and it brightens my mood when I hear it.”