Krautrock pioneers Can's version of "Silent Night"

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/12/24/krautrock-pioneers-cans-vers.html

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Well that’s certainly different.

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Yes we Can.

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Haven’t heard it yet but it is already my favorite Christmas song. Thanks @pesco

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Just gonna leave this here.

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They also did Little Star of Bethlehem. Kinda. Not really.

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Wow that was awful.

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You are entitled to your wrong opinion.

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I’m kinda reminded of a typical experience playing educational shows for kids- you’ll tell the kids to use their imagination and there are no wrong answers but then you play something like an impressionistic piece of fluffy cloud and when you ask they’ll say it sounds like explosions and missiles and war or some nonsense that’s just obviously, well, wrong.

Like in writing, an opinion has to be supportable by the text. For a song that is largely about silence, contemplative stillness, and a fragile sleeping baby, a driving boots-and-pants-and-boots-and-pants rhythm section is in direct opposition to expressing any of that.

About the only artistic merit I can ascribe to this is if its a commentary on how nowadays (well, at the time) Jesus would have ended up born in a mall, in between the K-Mart and the Wurlitzer store.

/pedant having fun with taking something too far too seriously :wink:

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For more about how great Can supposedly is, see all the “Can is better than Rush” action several pages down in the comments of the article below.

Quite a coincidence, as even though they’d be mid-spectrum of things I like, I’d never heard of Can before about 45 minutes ago until reading those comments. And here they are again.

I gave a listen to a couple of Can songs then a couple of Rush songs. In my obviously wrong opinion, I like Rush a lot better.

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Because you can only have one music, after all. (I am always puzzled when people treat art like sports.)

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Nah, that’s a valid… you are not calling it awful just not your thing. I like Can but I come at from liking Bitches Brew era Miles Davis and I am not sure which way the influence went. One of the coolest things of that era of rock was all the experimentation and the idea there was no wrong way to play which led to some amazing stuff and also gave us ELP. (I kid, I kid)

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No need to kid :wink: As long as we’re talking about prog and christmas, I’ll stick up for them and say Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas was my favorite christmas song (until I discovered Christmas Wrapping just this year).

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Ahh The Waitresses fun fun stuff.

I am all cynical and prefer the darkness of The Kinks Father Christmas and I was recently reminded of Slick Nick by Fishbone.

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Speaking of progressive rock are any of you going to be on Cruise to the Edge or have you ever gone on it?

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Silent Night, also available as Nightcrawler off The Silents’ 2008
uh, album of songs, or play back all at 7kHz sample rate,
round yon kimchee, that crucifer reviled;
steep in heavenly CBD, steep http://johngrant.org/a-night-of-silents/ in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zfYO9sZjrE heavy beats.

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Is that what I said? I am always puzzled when people can’t distinguish between “expressing an opinion” and “issuing a diktat”.

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My flatmate is asleep, having gone out last night and come back this morning, thus not helping me with the dinner. I might use this to wake him up. Or just go nuclear and blast some Terrorfakt.

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Anything but Little Drummer Boy; whichever version.

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