Tag: Christmas

Despised Tunes of Christmas

older than I thought

despised songsI found The Most Hated Christmas Songs of All Time here and The 20 Worst Christmas Songs of All Time here. Some of them I don’t know, and you really need to know songs for them to be despised tunes, don’t you think?

Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney. I’ve heard some very decent covers of this song. The song isn’t bad. This recording?

Do They Know It’s Christmas? – Band Aid. When Bob Geldof called it one of the “worst songs in history,” that says a lot. Pretentious and condescending, but its heart was in the right place.

The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) – Alvin and the Chipmunks. When I was growing up, my parents had this single. It’s nostalgic for me.

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – The Jackson 5. It’s corny, especially when Michael says, “I’m going to tell my daddy!”

Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer – Elmo and Patsy. OK, I’ll admit it; I BOUGHT this single in the early 1980s. Not incidentally, the version that I heard on the radio was rerecorded.

All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth) – Spike Jones and His City Slickers. OK, so it’s annoying, but Spike Jones often is.

River horse

I Want A Hippopotamus for Christmas – Gayla Peevey. I never heard of this song until Mark Evanier posted it on Christmas Eve 2017. For a ten-year-old, she has impressive pipes.

Baby, It’s Cold Outside – She and Him. The critic finds this version “overwhelmingly twee,” whatever that means. Of course, the song generally has become controversial.

Back Door Santa – Bon Jovi. One of two songs on that original A Very Special Christmas (1987) I don’t particularly enjoy.

Here is another song I imagine some people will hate. Santa’s Too Fat For The Hula Hoop – The Pixies with Thurl Ravenscroft as Santa Claus (c 1958).

Now there is a track on both lists I hate SO much that I won’t even link to it. That would be Dominick the Donkey by Lou Monte. I thought it was a fairly recent song, but no. It was recorded in 1960. But I only heard it this century.

“The song was re-released onto Amazon on September 26, 2011, on Dexterity Records. The spelling of ‘Dominick’ was modified to ‘Dominic’… It was included in Volume 2 of the Ultimate Christmas Album series produced by Collectables Records and on the Christmas compilation album Merry Xmas 2011 by Cinquenta Musica.”

Christmas Day in the morning

Handel, Rutter

waiting.christmasIt’s Christmas Day. And it’s Saturday. Obviously, it’s time for some more Christmas music.

Let’s start with the probably obvious choice, the first part of the Messiah by Georg Frederick Handel. This is performed by the Dream Orchestra. It was conducted by Daniel Suk on December 3, 2015. I don’t think I’ve linked to this particular version, but I could be wrong. Sometimes, choirs will end this part with Hallelujah, which actually ends Part II, the Easter section; I’m catholic about doing that.

I’ve been in the chorus when this part has been performed in its entirety at least four times. And I’ve been in plenty of choirs that have sung And The Glory Of The Lord, And He Shall Purify, Glory To God In The Highest, and especially For Unto To Us A Child Is Born a bunch of times. I never tire of them.

Noel

The version of Gloria by John Rutter I picked was new to me. This was performed by the Angeles Chorale at the First United Methodist Church in Pasadena, CA, on December 15, 2012. This piece is harder than it seems, I can tell you from having performed it twice. My favorite Rutter piece is the Requiem, but it doesn’t fit this season.

I think I used this before. The Alma College Choirs sing The Dream Isaiah Saw. It’s by composer Glenn Rudolph. Recorded live at the 2011 Festival of Carols on the campus of Alma College in Alma, Michigan. I love singing this song.

Here’s Aubrey Logan singing O Holy Night. It was released only yesterday. Your basic last-minute shopping present.

Finally, the title tune, performed by David Arkenstone. This was NOT exactly what I was looking for. Nor were all the versions of I Saw Three Ships I came across. But it’s like other Christmas gifts; sometimes they are very nice, even when they are not what you were expecting.

 

Things I don’t want for Christmas

ARA

I suppose I should not be ungracious. Still, there ARE some things I just don’t want for Christmas:

Arguments that the COVID vaccine is contrary to God’s will because we have “natural immunity.”

That the vaccine has a microchip in it, broadcasting to Bill Gates’ new unlisted phone number.

That the vaccine was designed to fail. Or that the disease is fake, planned by the corporatists.

More things I don’t want for Christmas:

“Proof” that climate change has been engineered by a leftwing globalist cabal designed to take our freedom
“Proof” debunking the Holocaust
And “Proof” of Bigfoot’s existence (I just don’t get the Bigfoot stuff)

I bring this up because, in the past year or two, I have received EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THESE, unsolicited, to my email or via Instant Messaging on Facebook. And there were many more of like persuasion. You can’t just return them to Amazon.

Illusionary superiority

Here’s an interesting article from Scientific American. People Who Jump to Conclusions Show Other Kinds of Thinking Errors. Moreover, “Belief in conspiracy theories and overconfidence are two tendencies linked to hasty thinking.”

There was a fishing experiment you can read about. “The earlier a person jumped, the more likely they were to endorse conspiracy theories, such as the idea that the Apollo moon landings had been faked. Such individuals were also more likely to believe in paranormal phenomena and medical myths, such as the idea that health officials are actively hiding a link between cell phones and cancer.”

The article was by Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning on October 15, 2021. Dunning? I remember that surname from a blog post about illusionary superiority I wrote in September of 2015. The phenomenon is “a cognitive bias whereby individuals overestimate their own qualities and abilities, relative to others… Other terms include superiority bias, leniency error… and the Lake Wobegon effect.”

Instead

If you’ve been around here long enough, you know what I really, really want. And no, it’s not the Spice Girls’ greatest hits. (Although I don’t have any Spice Girls music. Should I get some?)

I want YOU to Ask Roger Anything. It could be about Bigfoot or the Holocaust, I suppose, and why I don’t believe in the former but do believe in the latter. 

Expect answers to your questions, probably within a month. Please leave your questions, suggestions, and interpolations in the comments section of the blog. OR you can also contact me on Facebook or Twitter. On Twitter, my name is ersie. Why ersie? I’ve probably answered that before, but I could do it again if you ask. Always look for the duck.

You may remain anonymous, or better yet, pseudonymous, but you need to tell me that. E-mail me at rogerogreen (AT) gmail (DOT) com, or send me an IM on FB and note that you wish to be unnamed. Otherwise, I’ll attribute the queries to you.

 

A dozen Christmas songs (or more)

Chestnuts roasting

A dozen Christmas songs I had not linked to yet this season. These are among my favorites.

Wexford Carol – Alison Krauss and Yo-Yo Ma. Alison is one of my wife’s favorite artists. She’s one of her K Girls, along with Diana Krall, and they reside next to each other in the file cabinet. Naturally, the artists are in alphabetical order

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown. I was not really familiar with him, to be honest until I heard Bonnie Raitt had him and the unrelated Ruth Brown on a live album that I own.

Merry Xmas (War Is Over) – John and Yoko and The Harlem Community Choir. Always makes me sad, because John’s assassination was in December.

River – Joni Mitchell. I’m still mystified that my late friend Donna, who was a music buff and a Joni obsessive, failed to hear Jingle Bells as the motif of this song.

The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole. Likely my mother’s favorite singer. Whatever happened to all of her old 78s she owned?

The year the US entered WWII

Getting Ready for Christmas Day – Paul Simon. I was always taken that the sermon was from 1941, the year Paul was born. Simon is sampling!

This Christmas – Donny Hathaway. I miss Donny, though I have none of his albums, except the ones he did with Roberta Flack.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love. I could have picked several songs from that Phil Spector Christmas album. But this song is the best of a great bunch.

The Mistletoe And Me – Isaac Hayes. From one of those Stax/Volt boxed sets. This deserves radio play!

Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses. I have this on 12″ vinyl, but it’s seldom made my annual lists simply because it slips my mind.

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder. One of my Top 5 favorite pop Christmas songs. I have it on both a Stevie album and a Motown compilation.

We Three Kings – Patti Smith. This is from A Very Special Christmas 3 in 1997. David Lose calls the rendition an unlikely Christmas carol, in a good way.

Wait, there’s more!

Here are a few from Sharp Little Pencil:

Snowman – Barenaked Ladies

Christmas Calling (Jolly Jones) – Norah Jones 

Plus
Kelly’s Daily Dose of Christmas
St. Olaf 2021 Christmas Festival – Almost two hours of song and orchestral accompaniment
Ken Levine: The Obscure Sounds of the Season
Coverville 1383: The 2021 Christmas Cover Show
1st RECORDING OF Blue Christmas – Doye O’Dell (1948)
Chuck Miller: The worst Christmas songs of all time

More Christmas on the burned CD

The Bells of Christmas

Here’s the second part of the Christmas song roster that I put on a burned CD in 2006. There are other holiday compilations I’ve made. But I pulled a bunch of CDs off the Christmas section of the shelf. I had intended to pick selections from various discs, but when I found this puppy, voila!

In retrospect, I might have put the two Santa songs and the Allan Sherman cut together.

Careless Santa – Mono Puff. From a Hello Records compilation c. 1997.

The Bells of Christmas – Julie Andrews. Absolutely one of my favorite Christmas songs ever. And I have the hardest time finding it on YouTube. There’s a version of it, featuring the Young Americans, performed much faster and higher in Julie’s range I just do not like. This version has an extra minute of strings starting at 1:07. The version I love is at 17:33 of the album. Accept no substitutes.

Barefoot Santa Claus · Sonny James. This appears on some compilation someone made for me. But I may have heard it growing up – it came out in 1966 – when I used to listen to WWVA in Wheeling, WV late at night.

Star Carol · Simon and Garfunkel. From their boxed set, Old Friends. It was recorded in 1967 but was not released until 1997.

Very special

What Child Is This? · Vanessa Williams. From A Very Special Christmas 2, which came out in 1992 to support the Special Olympics.

12 Days of Christmas · Allan Sherman. Heard this growing up.

The Coventry Carol · Alison Moyet. My favorite cut from A Very Special Christmas album from 1987.

The Christmas Waltz -Frank Sinatra. I have this on the Capitol Records Frank singles box set. BTW, tomorrow would have been Sinatra’s 106th birthday.

Gabriel’s Message – Sting. Another song from the original A Very Special Christmas.

Jingle Bells -Fab Four. Not the Beatles, but a tribute band.

Silent Night · Sarah McLachlan. Her Wintersong album came out in 2006, but I don’t own it, so it must have been on another compilation.

Winter Snow · Booker T. and The MG’s. Arguably my favorite song from Stax-Volt: The Complete Singles 1959-1968.

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