Here’s the latest from the crossroads of faith, media & culture: 12/19/23

Christmas Memories: Remixed & Remastered Track Listing: Blue Christmas, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day, Let It Snow, Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem, Rudolph, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, Silent Night, The Burgundeon Carol, The Christmas Waltz, White Christmas, Winter Wonderland

Christmas Pie. In a lot of ways 2023 doesn’t seem all that different than 1972, the year Don McLean‘s signature song American Pie  became the number-one single in America. Then as now, cynicism was dominating the culture and reports of war and unrest the nightly newscasts. One significant difference between now and then is that those half-hour nightly newscasts have since expanded to 24 hours a day and can be watched on our phones (which are apt to regularly alert us to the latest morsel of all-too-often distressing news). The torrent of bad news is virtually inescapable. Meanwhile, the peace of that Silent Night two millennia ago that he sings about on his new holiday album Christmas Memories: Remixed & Remastered feels light years behind us. Here the music icon reflects on some of those distressing headlines and why, particularly in cynical times, Christmas is so important.

JWK: The title of your album is Christmas Memories: Remixed and Remastered. How’d it come about?

Don McLean: Here’s what happened… There are some songs that I really dig – Winter Wonderland, White Christmas, some of these things…So, this year I said to my producer in Nashville Mike Severs “Listen, can you get an upright bass player into this studio and have him put a proper really swinging upright bass to Winter Wonderland? Let’s remake this thing, remix this thing, so my voice is out front and the size it should be instead of stuck underneath all that s***. He said “I know just what you want.” So, he sent back Winter Wonderland with the new bass – remixed, remastered – and it was like an enormous change. It went from like black and white to technicolor. So, we did one track after another. (I thought) “I gotta ask these people who are putting out a lot of my records whether they want to put this out.” They loved it! So, they’re putting it out.

JWK: What kind of reaction are you getting from listeners?

DM: Absolutely fantastic reaction! I really mean that. Everybody’s been sincerely over the top about these tracks. Do you like it? Have you heard it?

JWK: Yes, I did listen to it. I liked it a lot!

DM: That’s nice. Thank you.

JWK: How were the songs chosen?

DM: I don’t know. I just have a feel for this stuff…I wanted a variety of things. A couple of them are like swinging jazz things like Let It Snow and The Christmas Waltz, then some of the more standard big-ticket items like White Christmas, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and things like that – and then some more solemn ones like Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and Silent Night. Then there were some in there that probably most people haven’t heard, like The Burgundeon Carol. Tony Migliore did all the string arrangements on the record – and that is a magnificent string arrangement! It’s feels like 1700s English or something. You know, it’s beautiful.

JWK: Do you have a particular favorite song on the album?

DM: I like them all! I love Silent Night. I think Silent Night is very good. I think Silent Night is a solemn, beautiful song. It was my mother’s favorite. I think the performance is pristine. It’s very clean sounding.

JWK: Speaking of your mother, do you have any favorite Christmas memories from when you were growing up?

DM: My Christmas memories are of a different America…Whether you were a Protestant or a Catholic, you believed in Christmas. So, there was a coming together. It was also a religious time of the year. I have old TV Guides going back to the fifties. If you look at The Today Show, for example, they would do a whole week on the Nativity and the birth of Christ. It was not about Santa Claus. You know, Santa Claus was for kids. We had been country that had been through the Depression and World War II. By the time you got to December, the birth of Christ and Christmas – which means Mass for Christ – it was a solemn time of year. A lot of people had died. A lot of people had suffered. There was a lot of suffering in those years. Really, starting with the ’29 crash all the way through to the end of the war in ’45, it was no day at the beach. It was hard. People were used to sacrifice and they were also used to being grateful. You know, having gratitude – which is something we don’t have now. People are not properly aware of how much gratitude they should have.

JWK: I agree. Speaking of TV Guide, I remember looking through it at Christmastime and there used to be all those specials with Bing Crosby, Andy Williams, all those people. They don’t do those anymore.

DM: Unfortunately…the Church has done things that were not good. People have lost belief in the Church. People have lost belief in government. People have lost belief in…teachers. There’s been a breakdown of trust in these institutions. I don’t know what we can say about that. I don’t really know. I thought the pandemic might bring it back a little bit but it didn’t seem to make a dent.

JWK: It almost did the reverse. The mood of the country seems similar to me to what it was like when you wrote your classic song American Pie. It’s like the country and the culture has been through something that has changed it. That was also a period where people had become more cynical and disillusioned. It seems like we’ve been through another wave of that in this generation.

DM: I don’t think the wave ever stopped. I don’t think the country ever recovered from the Kennedy assassination. It’s an ongoing investigation in which the government continues to withhold evidence. As these years have gone by that can only mean one thing – that the government is part of the problem. The thing that people don’t really understand is that it’s an ongoing thing which was connected to Watergate which brought down the other guy. After Eisenhower left office…we had three of the worst presidents ever. We had Kennedy, we had LBJ and then we had Nixon…You know, everybody’s worried about Trump getting back into office and all this stuff. I don’t think anybody could have been more dangerous than LBJ.

JWK: I’m surprised you would include Kennedy in your list of worst presidents. Why?

DM: Well, JFK was a terrible president. JFK was a very immoral person who projected a wonderful elegant image…He was involved with women who were involved with mafia figures who were involved with the government who were involved with the Cuban exiles who were involved with all the other stuff. So, the Kennedys were not moral people. Their father was a criminal. And we loved them. I mean I loved them! I stood in line for hours to go to the wake of Robert Kennedy. And I felt terrible about the assassination of JFK – but he was not a good president. He was responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He was responsible for the thing with the Russians where we almost went to nuclear war – because (the US) put warheads in Turkey! Once he took them out of there everything was cool. That was their way of saying get them out of there.

He was one those guys like Walter Mitty. He liked to be on the edge to get his thrills. Also, I think that Kennedy felt that he had to resolve a crisis in order to be a famous president. In other words, Roosevelt was his ideal. Roosevelt, of course, is the greatest president of the 20th century. Look at the challenges that Roosevelt had: the Depression, World War II (and creating) Social Security. He didn’t get around to Medicare. Johnson did – and Johnson did that because Johnson was also a lover of FDR. Presidents are not all great people. A lot of times they have so much blood on their hands. I mean look at George Bush starting that ridiculous war in Iraq when those guys that attacked the World Trade Center weren’t even from there – and there were not weapons of mass destruction. It was a total hoax in order for him to go in an decimate a country that had a s****y leader – Saddam Hussein, yes – but that was a good country. This guy is a war criminal – a huge war criminal! So, these presidents they’re not all that great sometimes. I mean we had a good guy in Carter. Carter was a good man – and Trump didn’t start a war. I’m thankful for that.

JWK: A lot of people think President Biden views himself as the new FDR.

DM: That’s funny. That’s really funny. I don’t like throwing a hundred-billion dollars into Ukraine’s war and escalating this thing like crazy. I don’t know why Democrats always escalate wars. I really don’t. It seems like they do. You’d think Republicans would do that.

You know what? You can’t have the country you want if you’re an American. You’re going to have partly what you want and partly what you hate. That’s just the way our country is. You’re never gonna have the country that you want with America because there are just too many directions that it goes in. You’re not gonna have a Woke America. It’s not gonna happen. That whole way of thinking is going to go out. It’s finished – and you’re gonna have a reaction to that because Trump very likely might be president (again) and you’re going to have a very right-wing reactionary situation for a while. One thing we have is the Rule of Law and the Rule of Law is really being tested by all these indictments of Donald Trump. Now, if this guy gets convicted and he doesn’t go to jail that’s going to be a bad message to send to the country.

JWK: So, what do you think about the indictments? Do you think they’re justified?

DM: Well, I think that you have four different cases going on. The case in New York I don’t understand because there are no losses and no victims. I don’t get that case at all. The Stormy Daniels thing is old news. The documents thing is 100% his fault. He was warned that he was breaking the law and he still kept doing it. So, he should go to jail for that. The January 6th insurrection thing, that should be enough to keep this guy off the ballot, in my opinion.

JWK: Is there anybody you like on the political scene out there?

DM: No. I don’t think anybody with any brains wants to be involved in politics because they know they’re probably gonna get…arrested or have something happen. It’s not a noble profession anymore, really. That’s what Kennedy said about being president. He said “The Greek definition of happiness is the full use of one’s powers along lines of excellence.” By the way, that’s how I feel about what I do – for me. What I do is the full use of my powers along lines of excellence. That is why I am happy.

JWK: I’m glad you’re happy.

DM: That’s why I’m happy.

JWK: You lived in Israel for a while, right?

DM: Yes, I lived in Israel.

JWK: You recently expressed your sadness about the terrible attack of October 7th.

DM: Awful! Awful! I would say one thing about that if I may.

JWK: Sure.

DM: The song Jerusalem has been remastered from the Believers album. We put that out as sort of a public service – and that sounds beautiful. Jerusalem is always going to be the center of the Earth. I knew that when I lived there…I’m not Israeli and I don’t understand anything but I understand more than the average American does because I was over there for more than four years, on and off. There are people now calling for a ceasefire. I would say that the best thing for people to call for would be for unconditional surrender (by Hamas). That is going to happen the easy way or the hard way. The easy way would be for them to say “Look, we’re beaten, we give up, we’re gonna come out of our holes and we’re gonna take our punishment, whatever that may be.” The hard way will be a lot more bloodshed and a lot more Palestinians killed – but they don’t care about the Palestinians.

JWK: So, as we come up to Christmas, it sounds like you’re a little bit discouraged about the way things are in the world right now.

DM: Oh, I’m always discouraged about that. You know, there’s always room for improvement. My God! We have so many problems. We have the environment. We have the Military-Industrial Complex. We have homelessness. We have drug addiction. We have all sorts of mental problems. It seems like everybody’s in therapy and everybody’s a victim – and that is not a good way to be. So, we always have problems. The beautiful thing about the last month of the year is that we get to try understand each other, love each other, forgive each other and have a moment of balance and love as we end the year and we start a brand-new year in the cold of January…So, it’s a circular thing. There’s always redemption. I believe in redemption – but we’ll never have the country that we want.

Then on top of everything else that we have that’s plaguing us – not to mention the pandemic we just got over and we certainly could have another one of those – we have this artificial intelligence bulls**t that’s rearing its little head! What is that?! We don’t even know what it is! You know what I mean?!

JWK: I do!

DM: Talk about a monster! Holy s**t! And that comes amidst everything else! You got people who want flying cars and they want cars that go in the water! Before you know it you’re gonna have all this crap flying around in the air and you got everybody wanting to go into outer space and all this other stuff. I mean the technology never stops.  It’s funny because the stirrup was a form of technology hundreds of years ago – and what did it lead to? War. War on horseback!…So, technology has these unintended consequences. You never know what’s gonna happen. It’s really very confusing. I don’t see this guy Trump or Biden or anybody I see on the horizon as being at all capable of grasping everything in this situation. I think they’re just sort of caught in the storm themselves. They seem to be like they don’t know what they’re doing. That, in a way, is a little bit like the 1930s when we did have a Roosevelt come along who made us feel like there was a guy who maybe had a way out of this.

JWK: Like you were saying before about Trump being a reaction to Wokism, it seems to me like both sides want to keep progressing to their extremes when we should be struggling to find balance between the two points of view.

DM: Well, you know, when you attack Israel the way they did you’re going to have to expect (a strong reaction). To me, I thought right away this is some kind of trap because they know what’s gonna happen and they’re anticipating that maybe a bunch of other countries are gonna come in on this and they can finally (destroy Israel). I believe – and I say this in all honesty – that Hamas, the PLO and these people they are basically continuing the legacy of Adolph Hitler. Their goal is to remove the Jews from the Earth. That’s the same thing that Hitler put on the table…It’s the same thing. It’s never been on the table before as a goal. Since World War II it’s been on the table. These people are putting this forward as a goal. They even say it. So, Israel knows how to protect itself. They’re surrounded by millions and millions of Arabs. Some don’t want Israel destroyed and some do. There are a whole lot of versions of opinion there. I met wonderful Arab people when I was there – and Israelis. All of them were terrific people – but there’s this  agenda and the Israelis are not going to let it happen. That’s all there is to it.

JWK: What do you think about the protests going on on the college campuses right now?

DM: I think that colleges are pathetic. I really do. I think they are pathetic. I think that they are completely closed-minded. I think they are a bastion of closed-minded points of views about things. Anybody who gets on campus who has an opposing point they’ll shout down. They are very anti-intellectual and very stupid. They’re stupid. The whole idea of all this Woke stuff is completely stupid. Cancel Culture is stupid. Why can’t you have – as you should have on a campus – the interchange of ideas and respect another person’s point of view. Maybe he knows something that you don’t know. But that does not happen. A college turns out activists and they turn out corporate robots. That’s what they do.

JWK: I agree with that. By the way, I’ve been listening over the  past year or so to the recording of American Pie you did with Home Free. I thought that was really nice. Did you enjoy doing that?

DM: I like those guys! We did Vincent as well. I don’t know if we’ll ever come out with that one. They’re very nice boys. We did a really nice video. Gee whiz, a lot of people liked it. You know, they enjoyed it. So, that was fun.

JWK: It was very good!

DM: They’re on the new album I’ve made, American Boys. They sing background vocals on two or three songs.

JWK: Fantastic. What do you have on your agenda after the album?

DM: Basically, I’m going to go Christmas shopping. I’m going to do exactly what I want to do – except for some days of promotion. I am going to start lifting weights again, taking walks and doing the things I should have done more of the last two years but I was singing so much, traveling and running through airports with guitars and things.

JWK: Well, that’s good exercise.

DM: Yeah, I figure I was getting exercise that way. I’m really enjoying talking to people like you and hearing your questions. In the case of the (Christmas Memories) album I’ve been getting very nice feedback on that. So, I’m happy for that. I’ll be anxious to see what they think about the new record when it comes out.

JWK: When will that be?

DM: In February.

JWK: Great. I look forward to hearing that. Well, it was great talking with you. Is there anything you’d like to add as we wrap up?

DM: Thank you very much. I liked talking to you too.

JWK: Merry Christmas.

DM: Same to you.

John W. Kennedy is a writer, producer and media development consultant specializing in television and movie projects that uphold positive timeless values, including trust in God.