TORONTO – While trying to work at a cafe the other day, I experienced the real war on Christmas. Hoping for the familiar hum of conversation and music, I was surprised upon entering that no one was talking. Still, I sat down with my notebook and attempted to focus my thoughts, but something was playing havoc with my concentration. The music seemed eerie. I lifted my head, listened and became disturbed.
What seemed at first to be a playlist of winter classics and Christmas carols offered something else entirely. The melodies were more or less the same —recognizable as “Silent Night,” “The First Noel” and “Winter Wonderland.” But the voice was generically earnest, a bland baritone straining, I felt, from nowhere to nowhere.
Worse, the lyrics were wrong. Not a mistake here or there, but a pattern of errors. References to the nativity were expunged, replaced with metaphysical blather. And the human parts had gone missing as well. In the love song “Winter Wonderland,” we should hear this nice couplet about a pair taking a walk:
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