Category Archives: Music

Christmas Music

2 Replies

Earlier in the week my wife said it didn’t feel like Christmas. As we discussed this further it became obvious why – a lack of Bing! That’s right, not Bling but Bing!

20131224-095614.jpg

For her Christmas is synonymous with White Christmas. For me it’s pretty similar and for about a week in each year, I look forward to Christmas favourites. I actively seek them out from my own CD rack, Pandora, Spotify and on the TV. Foxtel obliged this year with their 20 favourite songs most of which were also in my favourites as well.

So along with everyone else I thought I’d have a go at my favourite Christmas Songs.

Band Aid – Do they know its Christmas and John Lennon’s Happy Christmas (War is Over) are my quintessential Modern Christmas Classics.

White Christmas – Bing’s is simply the best!

More Bing with Do you Hear what I Hear.

I have always loved Andy William’s Little Drummer Boy although Bing and David Bowie’s version is pretty good.

Kylie’s version of Santa Baby is a hoot! I had always assumed it was originally sung by Marilyn Monroe, but infact the originalwas sung by Ertha Kitt.

Springsteen’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town. I remember the first time I heard it was on a very scratchily recorded bootleg in the 70s. Maybe one year I will see Springsteen at Christmas and see it sung live! Until then I will have to be satisfied by the numerous versions on YouTube.

Mary’s Boy Child by Bony M is on my list; it’s certainly a blast from the past.

I’m not a big Mariah Carey fan, but make an exception of her at Christmas with All I want for Christmas is You

The Pogues A Fairytale in New Yorkis one that I have played pretty constantly in the run upto this Christmas. Whilst not in any way uplifting it is the most played Christmas a Song in Britain this century.

Littls Saint Nick by The Beach Boys reminds me of Summer Nights at one of my close friends place.

It used to be a family tradition that I would get a Chieftains CD at Christmas, which one year was The Bells of Dublin. A collection of Celtic songs with a Christmas theme and regularly gets a spin on Christmas morning.

I also love Tori Amos’s Midwinter Graces with Star of Wonder my favourite.

From an Australian perspective it’s hard to go past Paul Kelly’s How to Make Gravy .

Pretty much everyone has had a go at a Christmas Song. In my search I found songs by Jimmy Durante, Gene Autry, Nat King Cole, The Beatles, Wings, O’55, Miley Cyrus, Rod Stewart, Destiny’s Child, Tegan and Sara, Elmo, The Muppets and the list goes on.

I also love the traditional carols Hark the Herald Angels Sing and Come all ye Faithful but have to join the majority in saying that Silent Night is my favourite carol.

What’s your favourite?

Here are some other posts to get the brain flowing

Huffington Posts – Top 20

Forbes Magazines – Christmas Songs you’d play in February

About.com – Top 100 Christmas Songs

Shorrock & Cadd – Rock and Roll Royalty

Leave a reply

20131214-174218.jpg

There is something pretty special seeing Australia’s own Rock and Roll Royalty and Friday Night at Her Majesty’s in Adelaide was just such an occasion.

An audience of 50 plussers talking about their grand kids and rocking away – all a bit incongruous but that was how it was.

From the first song to the last, it was a walk down memory lane for the audience who just like me lapped it up.

The first set was a history of Australian Rock which was no surprise given Brian Cadd and Glen Shorrock feature so heavily in it. Covers demonstrating their influences, The Rolling Stones, Beatles and Everley Brothers and then into their own early bands, The Twilights and The Group. With a backing band that included the other two members of Axiom, a lazy 40 years on, we were treated to Arkansas Grass, Ford’s Bridge and to end the set Little Ray of Sunshine.

The stories

Continue reading →

Spotify, Pandora, Kindle, CDs and Books

Leave a reply

A few months ago I posed the rhetorical question “Have I really bought my last cd?”.

For the best part of six moths I happily went along listening to Spotify and Pandora as a paid subscriber. I discovered new music and old favourites. Amazingly convenient and almost no song not available. Rented music seemed the answer to my almost insatiable love of music.

Then a few weeks ago I had a change of heart sparked by a chance listening to a radio program with The Beatles biographer, Mark Lewisohn which sparked a desire to listen to The Beatles from start to finish and I wanted to own them, not rent them.

So it was back to the CD Shop and a resumption of a long term passion of purchasing music again. It was like running into an old friend. Seeing what was new, browsing the CD racks for something interesting and then the bargain bins with each visit usually resulting in a purchase. The result is that since purchasing The Beatles Boxed Set I have bought a few more CDs and it’s been fun. I doubt I will buy as many CDs as I did in the past, but I know for sure that my love for owning my music burns deep. Renting is convenient but just not the same.

The same chance listening to the radio

Continue reading →

The Beatles – Boxed Set and a Book

Leave a reply

A few nights ago I was lying in bed listening to Overnights on the ABC and was captivated by Rod Qunin’s interview with Mark Lewisohn the author of a new Beatles biography, The Beatles: Tune In. I lay there completely captivated by the story of the group that like so many others had introduced me to music.

The book is the first part of a trilogy and it’s a healthy 980 pages as I found out when I went into Dymocks to buy it. I accompanied that purchase with the digitally remastered boxed set of The Beatles fourteen album set. Whilst I already owned many of the albums on CD and vinyl, I didn’t have them all, so the purchase was at least partially based on logic!

Abbey Road was the first LP I ever bought. I remember purchasing it with money given to me by my grandparents, who seemed not so much horrified that I was buying a Beatles record but that it cost $5.20. It must have been in late 1969 or early 1970. That started a love affair with music and The Beatles.

I am only a few pages into the book and enjoying learning about their family background and formative years. So many insights.

Walking to work, at work, the gym and at home, I have listened to The Beatles all week focussing on the early years. The joy of it. I started with Please Please Me a couple of listens and then onto With The Beatles, and Beatles For Sale, an album I always realise is better than I remembered. From there it was A Hard Days Night and Help. I’m just loving it.

When I started this post I didn’t plan to write about the individual songs thinking my focus would be on the the complete album. Well at least that was what I was thinking until Yesterday. It’s true classic, in its own way euphoric. Through a week’s listening to these early albums over and over again, enjoying each and everyone of them, Yesterday stands apart.

The Beatles music in this period seems simple and not at all pretentious. Hit after Hit, Love Song after Love Song. A collection of amazing songs driven off the back of the modern era’s greatest writing partnership Lennon and McCartney.

Whether next week is a progression to Rubber Soul and beyond remains an open question. For now it’s back to Help.

Shivers Down My Spine

Leave a reply

My test of a beautiful song is whether it sends shivers down my spine.

It is not necessarily mainstream classics that cause my shivers, but more the relationship to a special time or person.

Songs like the Corrs Runawy with its beautiful harmonies and classic Irish folk style or Deep Blue Something’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s with its guitars are gorgeous songs, but there are so many more.

Yesterday, an all time classic written and sung by Paul McCartney is one of the great songs, with its beautiful guitar opening and mellow vocals.

Glenn Campbell’s version of the Jimmy Webb written Galveston is amazing. Jimmy Webb’s lyrics are so powerful, an anti-war classic sung in military time, making it all the more poignant.

Somebody’s Baby by Jackson Browne a song that makes me think of my wife each and every time I hear it. Shivers down the spine and a smile on my face.

It so also hard to go past Leaving on a Jet Plane. I love both the Peter Paul and Mary and Chantel Kreviazuk’s versions however it is always John Denver’s version that sends shivers down my spine. I saw John Denver at Adelaide Oval play this song with a close friend whose father had recently died and as Denver played the tears just gushed down my friend’s face.

There are so many Joni Mitchell songs that I love but it’s Free Man in Paris that fits this bill best. Jose Feliciano’s opening guitar is awesome, but it’s the memory of a day on my own where

I was a free man in Paris
I felt unfettered and alive
There was nobody calling me up for favours

as I wandered down the Champs Élysées. An amazing day the memory of which is rekindled every time I hear the song.

Walking in Memphis and the words

“Tell me are you a Christian Child?”
And I said “Ma’am I am tonight”

does it every time.

So there are some examples of beautiful songs that send a shiver done my spine but of all of them it is Anne Hathaway’s version of I Dreamed a Dream which truly stands out, it is simply emotionally raw and beautiful.