The best and worst of Xmas

Christmas tunes you're always glad to hear? And the ones you'd love never to hear again?

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Fab and Nosepail made comments on the Dave Brubeck R.I.P. thread that pointed to this one.

I'm always in the mood for "It's Christmas, Baby Please Come Home" (Original Spector version, U2, or Ramones)

thumbs up) Sock it to me Santa - Bob Seger

down) Wonderful Christmastime

Thumbs up: Alex Chilton's version of "The Christmas Song," Little Steven's Underground Garage Xmas album, Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Jigsaw Seen's Gifted (a recent discovery), Bing Crosby and David Bowie's "Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth"

Thumbs down: any version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (AKA the date rape song), instrumental Muzak versions of Christmas carols (particularly "Winter Wonderland" - I had to listen to that over and over again when I worked in a bookstore, and now the merest hint of the melody makes me spasm involuntarily)

never understood the appeal of "Baby It's....".
the lyrics are so fucking creepy:

So really I'd better scurry
(Beautiful please don't hurry)
But maybe just a half a drink more
(Put some records on while I pour.)

The neighbors might faint
(Baby it's bad out there)
Say what's in this drink
(No cabs to be had out there.)

I wish I knew how
(Your eyes are like starlight now)
To break this spell
(I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell.)

I ought to say, "No, no, no sir."
(Mind if I move in closer)
At least I'm gonna say that I tried
(What's the sense in hurtin' my pride.)

John Mayer needs to do a version .....who would his duet partner be?

fairytale of newyork- the pogues
father christmas give us some money- the kinks
least favorites- lennon n mccartneys christmas songs which is weird cause im a huge beatles n solo beatles fan even of their lackluster stuff in general.
something about both those songs which makes me want to do crack and die

Anyone who has a problem with "Baby, It's Cold Outside" needs to listen to the Louis Armstrong / Velma Middleton duet version. It's a horned-up, ribald classic.

"Take your shoes off, Lucy …

... 'n let's get JUICY!"

.
.
.

Truly, the spirit of Christmas in a nutshell.

Was at a tree-lighting with my old man and my 9 year old kid this weekend. My Dad was so disgruntled with the lack of traditional Christmas songs, he started losing his cool. When they played Bruce's "Merry Christmas, Babe", he just stood there muttering "The world is going to hell...". This is surely my fate.

I like most Christmas music. We play a lot of jazz holiday music at our house. Ella Fitzgerald and Etta James both recorded some excellent renditions.

"Father Christmas" by The Kinks probably is my favorite rock holiday tune. I also have a soft spot for Joan Jett's version of "Little Drummer Boy" and The Vandals' "Oi to the World." The Ventures, Los Straitjackets, The Smithereens, the Reverend Horton Heat and the Brian Setzer Orchestra all have released some great holiday CDs. And be sure to pick up Esquivel's Merry Xmas from the Space Age Bachelor Pad if you don't already have a copy.

I love Bob Rivers' parody albums. No Yuletide is complete without "Walkin' 'Round in Women's Underwear," "It's the Most Fattening Time of the Year" or "Santa Claus Is Fooling Around."

For a more classical feel, try the Hampton String Quartet's What If Mozart Wrote "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". Great fun.

And I wouldn't complain a bit if I never heard ELP's "I Believe in Father Christmas," Wham's "Last Christmas" or Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" again.

I am a freak cause I love Wonderful Christmastime. Possibly one of the few Smashing Pumpkins songs I like is Christmas Time is Here.

Then give me Phil Spector's Christmas, The Beach Boys Christmas and Vince Gauraldi.

I hate hate hate Bruce's Santa Clause is Comin' to Town. I like Bruce alright, but hate this one.

The Boy Least Likely To put out a Christmas album a couple of years ago and I like the song "Andrew and George," which manages to be a spot-on parody of "Last Christmas" while simultaneously being a fairly heartfelt tribute to Wham.

I always listen to "Listen, the Snow is Falling" at Christmas time, even though it's not really a Christmas song. Either Yoko's original or Galaxie 500's cover is fine.

Joy Zipper's "Christmas Song" is nice.

May I present your new favorite Christmas song:

[www.youtube.com]

entropy wrote:

> May I present your new favorite Christmas song:

I'm with nosepail's Dad

Original music about Christmas I like:

1. Kristin Hersh's "Holy Single"
2. Big Star, "Jesus Christ" (which Hersh covered)
3. Kinks, "Father Christmas"
4. ETBG, "25th December"
5. Jane Siberry's done a bunch of holiday-themed music including "In the Bleak Midwinter" also covered by Loreena McKennitt etc.

"December Will Be Magic Again" by Kate Bush

There are a few of the pop chestnuts I still enjoy in moderation, but I could take or leave 99% of what's out there. I dig more traditional fare nowadays...guess I'm another mutterer.

That said, the extended version of "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is as good an example of Trevor Horn's '80s as anything in existence:

[www.youtube.com]

Sufjan has about twenty good ones. As I will undoubtedly be receiving his new 5 cd box set of Christmas songs this year, I may have more feedback by dec 26

"Joseph, who understood" by New Pornographers is great. Actually relates to the event being celebrated, is really catchy, and hardly known, so not overplayed.

Mr. Mojo's Christmas by the Wise Men always cracks me up.

[www.youtube.com]

Jars of Clay's version of "Wonderful Christmastime" is way better than McCartney's original, which I can't stand.

Come to think of it, JOC's Christmas album is just good music overall, and something I would listen to outside of the Christmas season.

I generally hate all xmas tunes, but The Three Wise Men's [a.k.a. XTC] "Thanks For Christmas" generally comes as staunch relief when being subjected to Muzak® bombardment. I'm with rebelwithoutaclue. Wings "Wonderful Christmastime" gives me the screaming fits, and I only ever started hearing it about a dozen years or so ago on… wait for it, Muzak® systems. Brrr! I see that Capitol reissued it on 7" in 1994. When did it originally crawl from its lair?



Post Edited (12-11-12 16:55)

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Ooof! I forgot all about "A Fairytale of New York!" That song's so good I enjoy it year round! It's so good I don't associate it with christmas at all! And it's 25 years old? Anything I haven't been listening to for 30+ years still seems "new" to me.



Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®

Best

- rebelwithoutaclue is the only other person to mention Fairy Tale of New York by The Pogues w/ Kirsty MacColl AND Father Christmas by The Kinks? Damn.

- (I do like Taylor Swift's version of Last Christmas much better than both Jimmy Eat World's and Wham's original - mainly because it's probably the only version that sounds a little bitter and anti-Christmas'y.)

- Santa & His Old Lady, Cheech & Chong. Classic.

- Christmas Wrapping, The Waitresses

- Innocent When You Dream by Tom Waits

Worst

- Carol of The Bells. It still reminds me of The Exorcist.

- Christmas Wrapping version by Save Ferris or whoever that is.

- Postcard From Hooker song by Tom Waits

And Tracy Thorne's new version of "Hard Candy Christmas" will be in my iPod permanently.

Twenty-five years after its release, the duet about a couple who have fallen on hard times is still considered by many to be the greatest Christmas song ever

That's because it is.

I read a http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/dec/06/fairytale-new-york-pogues-christmas-anthem]wonderful article in the Guardian[/url] about "Fairytale of New York." Didn't really know the back story, and as a Kirsty MacColl (not Pogues) fan, I didn't really value Shane McGowan much, but the article spells out an unusual keen attention for detail and quiet forcefulness that brought the song to fruition over several years and multiple singing and songwriting partners.

Amazingly, I'd never seen the video before - didn't grow up with MTV and rarely see videos.

Here's my thought: Can we find a Mexican-American group to update this as "Fairytale of Los Angeles," covering some of the same immigrant-saga-gone-bad ground and updating the context? Because the song would totally work as norteño or banda....

Faves:

Wizzard: I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
Fairytale of New York
Do They Know It's Christmas
Damned: There Ain't No Sanity Clause
Some of the Phil Spector stuff
Cocteau Twins: Frosty the Snowman
Fear: F*** Christmas (original 7" version; there's a later version that's kinda weak).
Vince Guaraldi Trio: Charlie Brown Christmas (don't ask me how many versions of the CD I have...)
Kinks: Father Christmas (Creamers do a nice version of this as well).
Dickies: Silent Night
Royal Guardsmen: Snoopy's Christmas
Lazy Cowgirls: Sock It To Me Santa 7" (70's-Bob Seger's version is good as well)
Pretenders: 2000 Miles
Tryfles: Gloria (In Excelsis Deo) from one of the Midnight Xmas Mess comps.
Fishbone: It's a Wonderful Life
Duke Ellington: Jingle Bells
Culturcide: Depressed Christmas 7" (hehhehheh...)
Plus various faves from my youth such as Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Jackie Gleason (listen to "I'll Be Home For Christmas" and be amazed at how (probably unintentionally) downbeat he could be on the Xmas stuff)


Bad:
Spike Jones: All I Want For Christmas Is To Smash This F***ing Record Into a Million Pieces (More annoying Xmas song of all time)
Just about any version of "It's Cold Outside"
About 90% of what they play on "Xmas stations".

Guilty pleasures:
Wings: "Wonderful Christmastime". I can see how it can get on some people's nerves, but I've always had a soft spot for it.
Spice Girls: "Christmas Wrapping". My soul be darned. (Hey, as long as the Waitresses can get some songwriting royalties from it....)



Post Edited (12-12-12 21:56)

I've noticed over the last few years that "Christmas Wrapping" by the Waitresses is getting played more and more on the Christmas stations on the radio and on Muzak, etc. So it's gotten to be a reasonably ubiquitous Christmas song.

However, it's kind of unique in that it's still more of a Waitresses song than a Christmas song - i.e., you hear it an awful lot this time of year, but it's still always the original version that you hear. It's never broken through to where other people are covering it, except for the Glee idiots and whoever the people are that record generic versions of holiday hits.

The other ubiquitous Christmas songs of the rock era - "Blue Christmas," "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." "Wonderful Christmastime" and "Last Christmas" turn up regularly on Christmas albums by people other than the original artists, but "Christmas Wrapping" doesn't. Heck, even "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" has moved closer to being more universal, even though it's much more obscure in the US than "Christmas Wrapping" is. But I hear it on the radio and in malls now, and rarely is it Wizzard doing it when I hear it.

"Step Into Christmas" has never really become widely beloved and is still a bit of a rarity to hear, at least in my neck of the woods- but I have heard other versions besides Elton John's. "Do They Know It's Christmas" is more of an era-specific phenomenon to really get covered widely, and "Fairytale of New York" is just too darned harsh to ever be overheard in Walgreens, though again, I think it's been covered more widely than "Christmas Wrapping." Same with "Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight.)"

It just seems kind of odd to me for a Christmas song that has become as widely accepted a part of the season as "Christmas Wrapping" has to remain the sole property of the original band to record it.

So does that make it a standard, or no? You hear it all the time this time of year, but you don't hear a wide variety of versions of it.



Post Edited (12-15-12 14:31)

i would think that the waitresses version would be harder to cover and given the lyrics are a little more personal then most. most female singers who cover songs are belters n divas. this one isnt a exercise to say hey look at me i can hit the big notes and belt it out.
muzak certinaly has got more hip as the years go by and this song has a great balance between obscurity and popular

As this article points out, the Spice Girls covered "Christmas Wrapping" in 1998.

Butler points out that at the time of the interview, he was doing 'experimental' stuff with TV's Richard Lloyd. Did that ever come out?



Post Edited (12-21-12 13:00)

the KRAYOLAS have a wonderful christrmas song somewhere, will tryNpost.

Krayolas

Huh. We moved near Freakbeat earlier this year, and i've been hangin there lately. Didnt know about the club, will check that out. I have spoken to one of the guys who works there (the manager?) who used to engineer Posh Boy records.

I love the Wizzard & Kinks tunes. Also the Spector Xmas LP, especially "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" by the Ronettes (the original of that tune is too creepy for me). I like the Elton - still have that single. There was a nice one by Slade too from that era. Plus, I gotta admit I'm quite partial to Mel Torme's version of the standard he co-wrote, The Christmas Song (Chestnuts roasting on an open fire . . .).

Another fave is the one I brought to the Danny Benair Record Club earlier this month. DBRC meets monthly at Freakbeat in Sherman Oaks, and people bring in songs to play which fit into the category that Danny (ex-The Quick, btw) picks for that night. He decided the category was holiday songs, but ANY holiday, but they could not have the word Christmas in them. Mine was the Steeleye Span version of Gaudete. You can see the list of what everybody brought in here:
[www.facebook.com]

BTW, I gotta say, it's a fun club. If any of you plan to come out to LA when one occurs, check it out (you can come just to watch & listen, but either way you should RSVP on the Facebook page so they know how much pizza to buy).

Actually, while I'm not sure if it beats out Spike Jones, Madonna's rancid-babydoll kitsch-wannabe version of "Santa Baby" would definitely be in the running for Most Annoying Xmas Song Of All Time.

Quote

Madonna's rancid-babydoll kitsch-wannabe version of "Santa Baby" would definitely be in the running for Most Annoying Xmas Song Of All Time.

Madonna.
Most Annoying ... Of All Time.

It just works.

I realized after I posted that I had forgotten "Run Rudolph Run," but I thought SOMEbody must've mentioned it. But no. So I will. Naturally the Chuck Berry version is great, but so is Dave Edmunds'.

In an email from Care2 I followed the link to this list of Xmas turkeys. Some of it is a little much, but it's definitely food for thought. Didn't know "Do They Know It's Christmas" is so condescendlingly Eurocentric (didn't really pay much attention to the words). [www.care2.com]

Mr. Fab, feel free to check out DBRC next month, or whenever. It's usually on a Tuesday night (occasionally Wednesday) at 7:30 PM (although the music doesn't usually get rolling until 8ish).

Santa comes on Christmas on a Christmas day!
Santa comes on Christmas on a Christmas day!

Couldn't find great videos for "Christmas Is A Comin'," but kinda like this one for Chicken Crows At Midnight

Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.

That movie's got TP written all over it.