A Christmasing-sing dream: Crooning a carol sans log-lust or slaughter | MARK HUGHES COBB

Warning: About to plant earworms: So, this is Christmas ....

OK, one more: It's coming on Christmas ....

All right, that's less blatant (Joni Mitchell, "River"), so I'll swing back to pop: Logs on the fire fill me with desire ....

Insert record scratch.

Bless Karen Carpenter's chocolately-smooth fountain of a voice, not even her dulcet stylings could salvage that metaphor. Give older brother Richard credit for the melody, which bubbles along like a sweetly babbling brook, and babbling Frank Pooler responsibility for the lyrics which ....

Ear scratch.

To be fair, it's a solid-hit setup: Lovers, but separated at Christmas! Bonus "Happy New Year, too" tag. This yearning has LEGS, people. At least a week's worth. Tangible seasonal objects, such as greeting cards, a lit tree, crackling warm fire incinerating, here we go, a hunka-hunka-burning lust.

But "Merry Christmas Darling" goes wonky earlier, remarkable given it's barely launched into one intro-verse before stampeding towards flaming yule stumps, when, after setting us up for the heart-sucker-punch of Lovers! Separated! At Christmas!, it offers the plaintive wish: "Christmasing with you."

Given Germanic origins of the ritual burning of woodstuffs, I'm gonna guess the missing swain's name is Gerund Infinitive. So where's Gerry and his pacemaker flutterer? What keeps K&G from Christmasing-singing within a shared cozy log-nest? Warring familys, the Carpenters and the ... I don't know, Partridges? Walruses? Masons?

Centrifugal force? Electromagnetism? Particle decay? Death?

Come on, you know that's gotta be an option. Just look at "Coventry Carol."

Better still, don't.

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Alas, like all holiday-song mysteries ― Why does the clerk not dig into his own lint-holder to offer that Dickensian ragamuffin the missing ha'penny for Mom's Goin'-to-Meet-Jesus footwear? How many years of therapy will the kid who saw Mommy macking The Claus require before recognizing that as the moment his world shattered into disillusion and dissipation, accepting Santa and the mater cheating on Mrs. Claus and Mr. Kid's Dad, or far worse, knowing the folks set him up to witness their kink, because why else does a helper don the red-fur getup, except for a kid's visual delight? What are we to assume is the, oh, idiom, of "Jingle Bells" ' ride-along Miss Fanny Bright? — it will remain unsolved, which duh, wouldn't still be called mystery if not: Pooler died in 2013.

But he left a tale: Richard played piano for choral director Pooler at California State University; Karen sang and took lessons there. So it's understandable. They were young, he was a mentor, supportive of music-career blueprints, even as others told them Nah.

It was 1966 when the duo, weary of crooning standards, asked Pooler if he'd any spare timber-based ideas laying around, so he whipped out the 1946 lyrics he'd crafted when closer to the kids' then-ages, 16 and 20.

Richard took cues from Birminghammer Hugh Martin, who created perhaps the most melancholic of them all, "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" — assuming you overlook "Coventry Carol," which stems from (Triple-check these notes again) yes, women lullabying to children who are ABOUT TO BE SLAUGHTERED, so winner winner hymn-song-spinner ― and Burt Bacharach, infesting the lyrics with scads of major and minor sevenths, the occasional ninth to dominate, and a walkdown from Em7 to D6 to A/C#, one of the saddest of all regressions.

A forensic musicologist — TV series idea, solving murders where the killer plays theme music at the scene, tentative title "CSI: RPM" — named Joe Bennett, of Berklee College of Music, published a study of holiday ditties, expressing similarities.

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K, one last devastating slash at Pooler: "Holidays are joyful/There's always something new."

Let's analyze.

Part A, no they're not, precisely why most winter-holiday origins arose, in defiance of shortened days and gloomy nights. Nothing's growing; food stocks are running out; wacky Uncle Chad has returned, horrifically, given no one can remember who he's related to; and there's widespread crankiness contested by festive songs, shiny packaged floofloovers and blumbloopas, and a heapin' helpin' of feasting and quaffing.

And Part B, no, there's not always something new. The whole shebang circles 'round tradition! And the most common whine you'll hear, from anyone over 13, is "Socks, again? Tie, again? Santa Claus-fetish-wear, again?"

Bennett's findings, based on 78 seasonal songs from Spotify, December 2016, checked lyrics, tempo, key and sleigh-bell distribution. Themes arose: Home, love, lost love, parties, Santa, snow, religion, and peace on earth.

The most commonly-occurring words: snow, party, tree, Santa, love, home, cold.

Major keys dominated, to the chagrin of Martins and Carpenters, at 95%. Ninety percent played in 4/4 time, with 55% of those in a straight four, 35% in a swing beat.

Sleigh bells rang in 49%. Speaking of fiery topiary, Michael Bublé warbled 13%. Male vocalists dominated at 68%; female vocalists lead 24%. The rest were group vocals, or instrumentals.

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Since reading Nick Hornby's "About a Boy," an exception where the film matches the book beat for beat, I've dreamed of haunting Christmases Yet to Come by composing an earworm from which not only me, but all family, can retire, or perhaps never even go to work. Thanks to Berklee's Bennett, we have tools: Major keys, C or A preferred, then G, D, F and ... Eb? thanks, horn players; straight four beat at 115 bpm; male vocalist.

All I've gotta track down: sleigh bells to jangle through the chorus. Maybe Miss Fanny Bright has gear to spare?

Title: "Santa's TreeHouse Blowout ('Snow Way I'm Taking You Back, Love, 'til After Box-wine and an A.M. Text, Never Meaning to Send, Aka Baby Don't Be Cold Inside)."

I'm willing to go the distance, if it means warmed heart cockles, driftwood ablaze with amour, and fat jolly, quivering stacks of cold hard cash.

Guaranteed: No slaughtered infants, nor adulation infernos. Why, I'll even score it in the key of Bublé.

Mark Hughes Cobb is the editor of Tusk. Reach him at mark.cobb@tuscaloosanews.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Logs on the fire inspire a song-scheme to retire | MARK HUGHES COBB