The sounds of the season are now ringing in our ears. Radio stations traditionally begin spinning holiday tunes in early December and gradually ramp up the frequency as we get closer to Christmas Eve. I saw a story recently about one classic song the story’s author called the perfect pandemic song, at least in his opinion. The song is “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” and it seems we have been hearing different lyrics than the original ones since 1957 thanks to Frank Sinatra who wanted to have jollier lyrics to sing. His version has become the one we know as other singers have used the words he insisted on. A line we’re familiar with, for example, is “Hang a shining star upon the highest bough” but the original line was “Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow”. Another is “From now on our troubles will be out of sight”. The original in 1944 had “Next year” instead of “From now on”. You can laugh at me if you like but I started wondering whether we should even play “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” because of course it’s only in our dreams, and “Blue Christmas” because it’s about Christmas without you. Maybe I’m becoming pandemic paranoid.

That’s Coffeetalk. I’m Vic Dubois.