Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label christmas. Show all posts

Saturday, December 23

Christmas songs

Ah, Christmas. Where all the old songs come out again. The problem is most of them should just have stayed buried - they were simple cash-in attempts at the time, and they still are now with little redeeming features (and too many jingling bells as backing support).

So what ones can I stand?
"Fairytale of New York", of course, a modern classic
"Christmas Sucks" by Peter Murphy and Tom Waits - a couple of misanthropes declare how the holiday season is all the more reason to die. Hilarious.
"Wassailing Song" by Blur. It's a traditional wassail (Gloucester Wassail, I believe) done traditionally. A very obscure track, they released it as a special at a charity event, so not a cash in.
Greg Lake's "I Believe in Father Christmas" - nicks the tune from Prokofiev, complains about what a fairy-tale Christmas is, with an accurate desription of the weather ("But instead it just kept on raining")
Jona Lewie's "Stop the Cavalry" - soldier sick of fighting just wants to go home to see his girlfriend

And one reversal of my early rant - I have to admit a liking for "Sleigh Ride" by The Ronettes - yes, it's a cash in with loads of jingling bells, but it's a well-made cash in with loads of jingling bells that never actually mentions Christmas.