Entertainment For Lively Minds
Unseasonal Song Request
Posted by Mr Drayton on 5 August 2009 - 2:00pm.
I'm currently writing a show - 'I'm a Fifty Year Old Bloke And This Is What I Know About Christmas Music'.
I'm performing it, at Xmas, around the North East. The show will feature a chart of the most loved and most loathed christmas songs - hymns, carols, pop songs, christmas No 1's, anything festive.
So, what's yours? Loved and/or not loved.
One of each, or either, would be fab.
Any contributions most gratefully recieved.
Thanks.
- More from Mr Drayton.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Love: Stop The Cavalry/Jona
Love: Stop The Cavalry/Jona Lewie, Christmas Wrapping/The Waitresses, Christmas In Hawaii/KT Tunstall
Most hated: Last Christmas/Wham. Such a dirge - and that video. Ugh.
Love
The Pretenders: 2000 Miles
Don't Love
Chris De Burgh - A Spaceman came Travelling.
I can smell the tinsel now.
Oh, gawd…
… that Chris de Burgh song. Loathsome.
That song that's described in the song
How did it go again?
And it went...
Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da (repeat until ears bleed)
'Wept a bit, and fed the cat'
Things Fall Apart by Cristina ( not the happiest Christmas song ever, but great).
A pedant writes
Love -
Home from the holidays by the DB's
The Christmas Charlie Brown albums
Isaac Hayes - The Mistletoe and Me
Saint Etienne - I was Born On Christmas Day
Hate
Greg Lake - I don't believe
Cliff - Mistletoe and Wine - christian rhyme needs to be plural, hence does not rhyme
Wham - Last song I would every want to hear again
Bruce - He's never coming back if he hears Br-u-u-u-ce stretch those vowels one more time
All boyband/X-Factor Christmas ballards - on second thoughts Greg George all is forgiven..
Love
Song For A Winter's Night - Sarah McLachlan; Christmas Day - Dido; Driving Home For Christmas - Chris Rea
Loathe - the aforementioned Chris De Burgh; Mistletoe and Wine - Sir Clifford of Richard; Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town - Bruce Springsteen
It's CHRISTMAAAAAAASSSS!
Love
Slade - "So Here It Is, Merry Xmas"
Pogues - "Fairytale Of New York"
Low - all their Christmas album
Joey Ramone - "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"
Hate
Greg Lake / Cliff / Wham / Boybands etc as above
It's Christmas - what's not to love?
But here goes:
Loves:
Slade )
Wizzard ) You know the ones I mean
Pogues )
The Phil Spector Stuff
Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping
Not loves:
Rockin' around the Christmas Tree - by anyone, but especially that loathsome comic relief one from a few years back
The one Shakey did - Merry Christmas Everyone?
John and Yoko - Never mind me, what have YOU done then?
But the best Christmas song by far is:
The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot - best of all in the version done by Billy MacKenzie, if you can find it. Need to go now, to get this thing out of my eye...
The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot
Paul wrote:
"The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot - best of all in the version done by Billy MacKenzie, if you can find it. Need to go now, to get this thing out of my eye..."
If anyone else reminds of the lines in that song:
He hasn't got a daddy
the thing they'll have to get out of their eye will be my finger. My one hope for that undeserving brat is that his mother died the following year, and he went on to become the subject of the song "Nobody's Child":
I stopped just for a moment to watch the children play
Alone a boy was standing, and when I asked him why
He turned with eyes that could not see and he began to cry
'I'm nobody's child...' etc
Ho, ho bloody ho!
But, but...
He's a little boy!
And he hasn't got a daddy!
And it's Christmas - and, and, he didn't get any presents!
All he wanted was some soldiers and a drum.
Lucky, you have a heart of stone.
I blame the mother personally. Probably spent her Jobseekers' on cheap gin and fags.
"Last Xmas" by The Wham!
is a fabulously cheesy Xmas song, and what other kind of song is appropriate for a good old family singalong at Xmas? I have 9 other versions of it...
the best christmas song EVER
is "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". I'm getting a little sniffly just thinking about it.
and "The Little Boy that Santa Claus forgot".
and I have a veyr soft spot for "All I Want for Christmas is You", even though I can't stand Mariah Carey usually.
Hate? Well, I have an album of Christmas songs by Chas and Dave, for my sins. It is beyond appalling.
All I want for Christmas...
...first time I heard it I was convinced it was a song that had been around for years. I was staggered to learn it was a Carey 'original', written and recorded in the mid-nineties!
same here
I was convinced it had to be a cover, but no.
I love that song.
NO CONTEST...
..."Just Like Christmas" by Low.
Or, for a change ....
love
Ron Sexsmith Maybe This Christmas, Something to Hold On To (At Christmas) both on spotify
Darlene Love various Christmas songs, some on the standard Phil Spector material
traditional hymn Adeste Fideles (in Latin, of course)
Slade
hate
Wham
Cliff Richard
Any recording of
Silent Night sung softly by a male voice choir will have my bottom lip trembling within moments.
Love it.
I love...
that Slade one
'Stop the Cavalry'
'Christmas Wrapping'
'Fairytale of New York'
'Wonderful Christmas Time' - Paul McCartney (cheesy, but I like it)
'Last Christmas' - Wham (see above)
I don't like...
Anything by Cliff Richard
Mariah Carey
And All I Want For Christmas Is You. I know it's Mariah Carey, but its a great song. My second would be Darlene Love's All Alone On Christmas from the Home Alone soundtrack.
Left field but
Whatever Happened To Christmas, written by Jimmy Webb, performed by Sinatra, Joe Cerisano and Aimee Mann.
I'll go with Patrick - nearly all Cliff's Christmas music has been dreadful.
Out of left field
Little girl blue.
Not truly a Christmas song but because it opens with the intro to Good King Wencselas I have always considered it to be one. It's really a bloody good song.
Other loves are driving home for Christmas and Christmas wrapping. And just to be contrary I love the Greg Lake song - its almost the only thing anyone in ELP has ever done that I have liked.
Then there is the modern day version of Silent Night on the Damien Rice album that is bloody great.
Horrors - all I want for Christmas - dreadful beyond words.
The "flip side"
of Dora Bryan's All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle was/is If I Were A Fairy On A Christmas Tree, the opening lines of which were " if I were a fairy on a Christmas tree oh how happy and gay I'd be."
Unreal. Gotta be on your set list Mr Drayton, it'll bring the house down.
John Lennon
Happy Christmas War Is Over my favourite
Cliff Mistletoe and Wine least favourite
Yoko's
"Listen The Snow Is Falling" was (I think) on the b-side of the original single and is a) stunningly good; and b) far better than hubby's Xmas ode.
Happy Christmas War Is Over
is probably my least favourite. That, and the Band Aid thing.
Handsome
We'll have to agree to disagree Band Aid is bad but not as bad as We Are The World
Mr R, I've only got 10 words to say to you
"And there won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time"
'What Is This Lovely Fragrance Stealing'
A traditional French hymn that I first heard on Jane Siberry's live album 'Child - Music For The Christmas Season' [which is a great seasonal album btw]
I couldn't find a link or even a video of her singing it, so this will have to do. It's actually not a bad version and if you start to listen after the one minute mark you can miss the bum notes.
I want an Alien For Christmas
by Fountains of Wayne is a favourite in our house!
Coincidence
I have started to consider my annual Green Christmas CD for my chums (5th edition I think..). This week I have bought Christmas recordings by Hanson, Don Estelle & Sixpence None The Richer's The Dawn Of Grace, which features one of my favourite songs, Riu Riu Chiu, beautifully sung here by The Monkees.
I also collect copies of the song I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas. Marvellous!
Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses
It has everything - heart-warming story, good lyrics, danceable beat, great choon and a fabulous horn section. And it makes me smile everytime.
Christmas HMHB style
And not a dukla prague away kit in sight.
Good forward planning!
Love:
It's a Big Country - Davit Sigerson
Song for a Winter's Night - Sarah McLachlan/Gordon Lightfoot
There's no lights on the Christmas Tree Mother (They're Burning Big Louis Tonight) - Sensational Alex Harvey Band
In the Bleak Midwinter - Ed Harcourt
Cora Jones - Neal Casal
Spotlight on Christmas - Rufus Wainwright
Frosty the Snowman - The Ronettes
Loathe:
Merry Christmas Everyone - Slade
I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day - Wizzard
Last Christmas - Wham
Thankyou Very Much
I'll collate all of these into a chart and make great use of all your suggestions, choices, loves and hates.
Appreciated, thankyou.
Mr D.