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If you walk around a shopping mall, turn on the radio, or go to a coffee shop between Thanksgiving and Christmas,
感恩节和圣诞节期间，无论是走到商场附近，还是打开收音机，又或是去咖啡厅，
you’re gonna hear this song. "I don't want a lot for Christmas"
你都会听到这首歌。"圣诞节我想要的礼物不多"
That’s Mariah Carey’s 1994 hit “All I want for Christmas Is You.”
这首歌是玛丽亚·凯莉1994年的打榜单曲《圣诞节我只想要你》。
It’s one of the most often played Christmas songs ever.
也是一直以来播放最多的圣诞歌曲之一。
And it happens to be one of the only Christmas songs written in the last 20 years
凑巧的是，这首歌还是最近20年内创作的，绝无仅有的
that has reached the same popularity of the American Christmas standards that came before it.
人气赶上了美国之前的圣诞歌标准的几首歌曲之一
So, here’s a question: What makes Mariah Carey’s song sound so incredibly… Christmassy?
那么问题来了：玛丽亚·凯莉的这首圣诞歌为何听上去如此……有圣诞感？
aside from those sleigh bells of course.
当然了，我们得撇开里面的雪橇铃不谈。
One of the greatest Christmas albums of all time is A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.
一直以来，最伟大的圣诞专辑之一就是Phil Spector的《送你的圣诞礼物》。
It was originally released in 1963 to little fanfare
这张专辑于1963年首次发行，人气少得可怜。
But then it was reissued in 1972. At that point it instantly became a classic.
后于1972年再次发行。这一次立马就火了。
And if you look at Mariah Carey’s song, it is a direct style study of that 1972 Phil Spector Christmas album.
留意一下，你会发现玛丽亚·凯莉直接借鉴了Phil Spector1972年版本专辑的曲风。
The arrangement is just down to a tee.
而且是借鉴得恰到好处。
That’s Adam Regusea.
这位是Adam Regusea，
He teaches journalism at Mercer University but studied music and composition.
他在摩斯大学教新闻专业，此外，他还研究音乐和作曲。
Most directly I think she’s trying to imitate a song on that album called “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”
我觉得，最明显的就是，她在模仿那张专辑里一首叫《圣诞节（宝贝快回家吧）》的歌。
You can hear that so very clearly in how the intro of both songs are structured.
这一点，可以从两首歌的开场部分看得一清二楚。
But, if you look a little bit deeper into Mariah Carey’s song you’ll see another link.
然而，深入研究，你会发现两首歌之间还有另外一种联系。
One to the best selling song of all time: 1942’s “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin, performed by Bing Crosby.
那就是一直以来最热门的圣诞歌曲之一，Irving Berlin1942年推出的那首由Bing Crosby演唱的《白色圣诞节》。
And to find that similarity you’ve got to look at the chords. It’s all in the chords.
要想找到这一相似之处，我们得说一下这两首歌的和弦。因为它们的相似之处都在和弦部分。
A chord is 3 or more notes played together.
和弦就是同时弹奏三个甚至更多音符。
“Christmas (Baby please come home)” that Phil Spector song, I think that only has 4 chords in it.
Phil Spector的这首《圣诞节（宝贝快回家吧）》只用到了4种和弦。
It's a 4 chord rock song.
这是一首只有4种和弦的摇滚歌曲。
There’s a lot more variety of chords used in “All I want for Christmas is You”
《圣诞节我只想要你》则用到了更多和弦，
and they harken back to a time when popular music was largely informed by Jazz.
并且能把听众带回那个流行音乐深受爵士乐影响的年代。
A Jazz standard might have 9 different chords in it and chords of lots of different kinds and flavors.
爵士乐标准曲目通常会用到9种不同的和弦，这些和弦的种类丰富，效果各异。
Not just majors and minors but diminished and augmented and 7ths and 9ths and all that kind of stuff.
除了大三和弦、小三和弦，用到的还有减三和弦、增三和弦、七和弦、九和弦等。
And there is one very special chord in Mariah Carey’s song that gives it such a classic sound.
玛丽亚·凯莉的圣诞歌之所以听上去特别经典，就是因为用到了某个非常特别的和弦。
It’s no coincidence that that very chord is also played in “White Christmas.”
《白色圣诞节》里也用到了这一和弦，这绝非偶然。
So this is not going to sound great, I’m playing it off my iphone but...
听起来效果可能不会很好，毕竟我是在手机上弹的，但是……
So we’re putting both songs in the key of C for comparison.
为了比较，我们都用C大调来弹。
So Carey starts on a tonic chord, home chord. Chord one. “I don’t want a lot for Christmas”
凯莉的歌开头是一个主和弦，第一个和弦。“圣诞节我想要的不多”
One seven. “There’s just one thing I need”
接下来是一个七和弦，“我需要的只有一样”
Fourth chord. Subdominant chord. “I don’t care about the presents”
第四个和弦是一个下属和弦。“我不在乎那些礼物” 。
And here’s the special chord. “Underneath the Christmas tree” "I just want you for my own"
接下来就是特殊的和弦了。“圣诞树下的礼物” “我只想单独拥有你”。
So the effect is going from a dominant chord
总体效果就是，开头是一个主和弦，
and then kind of melting into this delicious spicy warm little diminished chord.
接下来慢慢滑向这个美妙、劲爆、温暖又稍微有些减弱的和弦。
Now if we were to compare that to Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas”
如果拿这一和弦与Irving Berlin的《白色圣诞节》相比较，
we see an incredibly similar progression culminating that very very special chord.
就会发现两首歌惊人地相似，两首歌都在朝这一极为特别的和弦过渡。
Irving Berlin starts this phrase with a tonic chord "Where the tree tops glisten and children listen"
在这个部分，Irving Berlin开头用到了一个主和弦，“当树梢开始布满银光，孩子们细细聆听”
There’s that special chord. "To hear sleigh bells in the snow"
接下来就是那个特别的和弦了。“听雪地里的雪橇铃。”
To me, the right word is just melting. You know it's like snow melting by the fire.
在我看来，好的歌词会自动融化，就像雪在火里慢慢融化。
It’s these Jazzy chords that give Mariah Carey’s song that kind of classic early 20th century Christmas Jazzy sound.
就是这些爵士和弦，赋予了玛丽亚·凯莉的圣诞歌那种20世纪早期圣诞歌曲里那种经典的爵士色彩。
And it's just the most Christmassy sound in the world. I don't know why.
我也不知道为什么，但它就是世界上最有圣诞感的音乐元素。
