Pachelbel's Canon in D wasn't a Christmas song. Well, okay, that's not technically completely accurate, since no one really knows why Canon in D was originally written, especially as it fell into obscurity for centuries and was only really rediscovered by the general public in the late 1960s. So it may have been written as a Christmas song, but we don't really know and have no evidence that would actually support that conclusion.
But the Trans-Siberian Orchestra got hold of the song, added some lyrics and some amplifiers and turned out this version of the song and probably cemented it in people's heads as a Christmas song forevermore. Although it used to be used for a lot of weddings and funerals, now it is holiday music, which seems odd. Repurposing non-holiday music as holiday music seems to happen every now and then - relatively recently the song My Favorite Things became a "Christmas song", an association it didn't have for its first fortyish years of existence.
I have to question the need to do this sort of annexation of non-Christmas songs by the Christmas season. I mean, we already have a lot of Christmas songs that were specifically written as such, and more are produced every year (although many, such as Last Christmas, are terrible). Does the ever-growing octopus of Christmas need to engulf non-Christmas songs as well?
Previous Musical Monday: There Won't Be No Country Music by C.W. McCall
Subsequent Musical Monday: Alabama by Neil Young
Trans-Siberian Orchestra Musical Monday Home
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