Tag: Christmas

Christmas was on a Sunday

I had no sense that 1978 would be MUCH better.

rogergreen-lesliegreenIt’s rather peculiar, I suppose, that I almost never go to church on Christmas Day, whereas I almost ALWAYS sing at church on Christmas Eve.

I did go at least once in the past ten years – I know the time frame because our current pastors were there. It is the one service you can go to in your pajamas, if one were to have a mind to.

Christmas is on a Sunday this year.

1960: Christmas was on a Sunday. I don’t recall what time my sister Leslie, who was 6, and I, who was 7, were allowed to wake up our parents. Baby sister Marcia was only two and we wouldn’t wake her up until she got up on her own.

I DO know that as we got older, the time got later and later before we could open the presents. (That’s Leslie and me in the pic, probably a couple of years earlier.)

1966: Christmas was on a Sunday. I delivered the paper six evenings a week, back in the olden days when there WERE afternoon papers, and then on Sunday morning, back in Binghamton, NY.

My father, who NEVER helped me with my route, because it was MY job, not his – not that I ever asked him – got up (or maybe stayed up) to help me deliver that thick newspaper to my customers on Clinton Street, Front Street and McDonald Avenue. That meant a lot to me, but I doubt that I ever said so.

1977: Christmas was a Sunday. I was probably crashing on the sofa of friends of mine in Schenectady, near Albany. That whole year was difficult, and I lived in New Paltz, NY; Charlotte, NC; Binghamton; Jamaica, Queens, NYC; back to New Paltz; and finally in the Electric City (GE was huge there at the time). It was undoubtedly the worst year of my life, even though I made some friends that year I still have. I had no sense that 1978 would be MUCH better.

1988: Christmas was a Sunday. I had left FantaCo, the comic book store less than two months earlier, burned out. Probably in a relationship crisis.

1994: Christmas was a Sunday. I had started my current job on October 19 of that year. But I was very DEFINITELY in a relationship crisis.

2005: Christmas was a Sunday. The Daughter was born the year before, the Wife and I were in our current house, in our current church. Life is pretty good.
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Berlioz: the shepherds farewell from the oratorio L` enfance du Christ”

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A Comic Book Christmas Carol

Music Throwback Saturday: Bethlehemian Rhapsody

Because the wise men come, wise men go, angels high, shepherds low.
This is how God’s love shows.
It’s a wondrous story to me, to me.

bethlehemianSurely, you are familiar with the Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody. Well, apparently unrelated to what would have been Freddie Mercury’s 70th birthday year, my church’s youth leader directed a version of something called Bethlehemian Rhapsody, about the birth of Jesus earlier this month.

There are a few examples of these online, always involving puppets. But the version the church kids did was a live-action bit, with The Daughter playing Mary. The adult choir soloists also sang with the kids. They did a boffo job.

The lyrics start:

Is this the real birth?
Is it nativity?
Caught in a census
in the town of his ancestry.

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see.
He’s just a poor boy foretold by prophecy.
Because the wise men come, wise men go, angels high, shepherds low.
This is how God’s love shows.
It’s a wondrous story to me, to me.

This is not to be confused by a different Bethlehemian Rhapsody, involving David and Goliath, sung by the group ApologetiX, with the lyrics here.

Listen to Bethlehemian Rhapsody (primarily the Jesus version):
here or here or here
here (video and lyrics)
here – lyrics of Jesus version, plus video of both the Jesus and David & Goliath versions
the ApologetiX David and Goliath version

Compare with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen:
here and here, including those lyrics

X is for Xmas music (ABC W)

Crosby had a Christmas special, which aired AFTER HE DIED and he had Ziggy Stardust on?

johncagecarollers

It’s been long established that the term Xmas is not an insult to Christians, but rather that the X actually represents the cross, as I’ve noted here and undoubtedly elsewhere.

This is is going to be a list of some of my favorite Xmas music NOT otherwise represented in this blog this month, with links to each. Of course, “Christmas” songs are peculiar beasts, some of which don’t even mention the holiday – Let It Snow (X3) or Jingle Bells being obvious choices. And let’s not even talk about the theological implications.

Hamildolph – Eclipse 6 (a new one for me)

Christmastime is Here – Vince Guaraldi

Good King Wenceslas – Ames Brothers

Little Saint Nick – Beach Boys

Purple Snowflakes – Marvin Gaye. I song I had not heard until this season, yet I had, sort of.

The Christmas Song – Nat King Cole. One of my wife’s favorites, and Nat always reminds me of my mom

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love. Way better than the U2 version on A Very Special Christmas 1.

Santa Claus is Coming to Town – the Jackson 5

Linus and Lucy – Vince Guaraldi

This Christmas – Donny Hathaway – I miss Donny Hathaway

Snoopy’s Christmas – the reason I took such great exception to the Snoopy v Osama record is that it wasn’t THIS Snoopy

Child of Winter – Beach Boys. A 1974 single I discovered on one of those early 1970s Warner Brothers Loss Leaders

Mele Kalikimaka -Bing Crosby with the Andrews Sisters, which I think is a hoot

Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses, which reminds me of my pop music listening renaissance in the early 1980s

The Wexford Carol – Yo-Yo Ma, Alison Krauss

The Christmas Waltz – Frank Sinatra, which is on some 4 CD Capitol singles box set

Getting Ready For Christmas Day – Paul Simon, from his 2011 album

Every valley shall be exalted – Lizz Lee and Chris Willis (with Mike E.) from Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration

The Mistletoe and Me – Isaac Hayes – and I miss Isaac

Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth -Bing Crosby and David Bowie This was strange. Crosby had a Christmas special, which aired AFTER HE DIED and he had Ziggy Stardust on? Now, Bowie’s gone too.

Father Christmas -The Kinks

River – Joni Mitchell. Hey, it namechecks Christmas, and it reminds me of my late friend Donna

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder; Paul Young does a decent version on A Very Special Christmas 2, but it doesn’t hold an Advent candle to the original.

R.O. Blechman – CBS Christmas Message (1966)

The Bells of Christmas – Julie Andrews, from a Firestone (tire company) LP I still own. There’s an extended version of this which is less good

Winter Snow – Booker T & the MGs (starts at 2:30)

Slightly off topic:

In defense of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime”

World’s First AI-generated Christmas Song Is the Stuff of Nightmares

Honest Trailers – Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)

The Korean War on Christmas

ABC Wednesday – Round 19

Music Throwback Saturday: Gene Autry

I’ve never seen any of Gene Autry’s films!

gene_autryWhen baseball’s American League expanded from eight to 10 teams for the 1961 season, all I knew of Gene Autry was that he was the guy who owned the team initially called the Los Angeles Angels, later referred to, when it moved to suburban Anaheim in 1966, as the California Angels, then the Anaheim Angels. (The other team was the new Washington Senators, after the old team became the Minnesota Twins.)

But then I discovered this was the same fellow who performed not one, but three Christmas classics. Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane) was written by Autry, with music composed by Oakley Haldeman. It got to #9 on the pop charts in 1947 and to #5 early in 1948 on the country charts, then to #4 country later that year.

The song was covered by several artists, notably Doris Day (1949), Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters (1950), Elvis Presley (1957), and Bob B. Soxx & the Blue Jeans (1963), the latter for that famous Phil Spector Christmas album.

The first cowboy singing star of the movies – I’ve never seen any of his films! – had his biggest hit with Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer, performed with the Pinafores, which was #1 for eight weeks on a special kid’s music chart in 1949, and also hit #1 on the pop and country chart that year. It recharted for another three years, and again after Gene Autry died in 1998.

The final Christmas hit was Frosty the Snow Man, performed with the Cass County Boys. it got to #4 country and #7 pop in 1950, and #2 on the kids chart the following year. His success with just these three songs put him at #2 on the chart of the most successful Christmas singles artists, behind only Bing Crosby, at least through 2004.

He was inducted into the Country Hall of Fame, mostly for his non-Christmas music.

Listen to songs by Gene Autry:

Here Comes Santa Claus (Down Santa Claus Lane) here or here

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer here or here

Frosty the Snow Man here or here

Music Throwback Saturday: White Christmas

“The version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.”

whitechristmas-decca18429aThere are, as far as I can ascertain, only two versions of perennial favorite White Christmas that charted on both the pop and the rhythm & blues charts.

One was the version by the Drifters, which got to #2 on the R&B charts in 1954 and returned to the top 12 the next two years. It also got up to #80 on the pop charts in 1955, and showed up on the lower parts of the pop charts the next few years. There were also special Christmas charts where the song showed up in the 1960s.

The other version was by an obscure crooner named Bing Crosby. In 1942, his version topped the pop charts a staggering 11 weeks and led the R&B charts for three weeks. The song hit the Top 10 in both charts in 1943. It re-entered the pop charts every year from then until 1951, and again from 1953 to 1962 before the Christmas carts were instituted in 1963 and dominated for many years.

There was a version recorded in 1947 by Crosby, which supplanted the iteration from Holiday Inn, the 1942 movie, because “the original masters had been worn out from all the pressings.”

From Wikipedia: Irving Berlin “often stayed up all night writing — he told his secretary, ‘Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!’

Here are movie facts from the 1954 movie White Christmas, starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye.

“The version sung by Bing Crosby is the best-selling single of all time, with estimated sales in excess of 100 million copies worldwide.”

Listen to
Bing Crosby 1942 here
Bing Crosby in the movie Holiday Inn (1942) here
Bing Crosby 1947 here
Bing Crosby & Danny Kaye, from the 1954 movie here

The Drifters here or here

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