My Musical Advent Calendar

"Thank God It's Christmas" /
Queen

And in the end, this is what it comes down to.

 

I could have posted about Nat King Cole's "Christmas Song" -- one of the greatest Christmas songs of all time, and a personal touchstone of mine. And I could have posted about Darlene Love's "Christmas Baby Please Come Home," which has so many holiday ramifications for me (David Letterman, Phil Spector, et cetera).

 

But nobody throws his heart on a stage like Freddie Mercury did, and in this 1984 holiday single -- written by Roger Taylor and Brian May -- Freddie flings it all out there, AND acknowledges that your Christmas may not be as perfect as the marketing folks make you think it should be.  

 

 

 

He's broadcasting to all who are connected to him -- his love, his friends -- and acknowledging the crap they've gone through in the past 12 months. (The Thatcher years, my friends -- need I say more?) "Oh my friends, it's been a long hard year." I love how the toggling chord changes underscore the back-and-forth of this frustrating year.

 

But now here comes Freddie, evolving into new (complicated) chords, and new keys: "And now it's Christmas / Yes it's Christmas, / Thank God it's Christmas." Surging upwards, in short broken lines that tell us that he knows he's hoping against hope. And that shiver of passion at the end -- so Freddie. Punching every note for emphasis, and like a diva breaking up "Christmas" into "Ka-rist-mas."  Because, when all is said and done, it is important to believe.  

 

Yeah, we live -- as he says -- in "troubled days." (You think 1984 was troubled? Just take a look at 2015.)  But, c'mon, it's just one day, and for just one day -- "Thank God it's Christmas."

 

It's a wail of despair, acknowledging all the angst that's gone before -- no denial here. And yet somehow the promise of better days is there too. The conviction in Freddie's voice buoys the song up and thrusts us into the new year. 

 

Let's go for it.  

 

And merry Christmas to you all....



My Musical Advent Calendar

"Christmastime" /
Aimee Mann

It's pouring rain here in New York City -- rain, not snow, on December 23rd -- and I couldn't get a cab to save my life.  So the last two presents I need to buy better be available still tomorrow. I couldn't sleep last night, worrying about all the things I need to get done before Friday.  Why did we think holidays were a good idea?

When I get in a funk like this, somehow I crave listening to Aimee Mann.  And here she is, with a Yuletide version of her trademark cynical melancholy.

 



From her 2006 Christmas album One More Drifter in the Snow (gotta love that ironical title), this song was written by Aimee's husband, the wonderful Michael Penn, along with Jon Brion. I love it when the morose magic of Aimee's voice is kicked up a notch by Michael's wry humor and clear-eyed perceptions.  

 

"It's Christmas again, December is here," she begins, in a diffident drawl, "Hasn't it been a wonderful year?"  Is it just me, or do I detect a note of sarcasm there?

 

It's a flawed holiday, at best. "And on the tree all the ornaments glow / Tinsel will cover where the branches don't grow."  Maybe that just because she's an outsider, looking in, but the merry streetscape sure seems like a cruel cliché. "There's lights on all the houses / Spouses with their spouses / Children playing in the snow."  I especially love that line "Spouses with their spouses," and how her voice lifts, so wistfully, on the second "spouses."  I find myself getting all tangled up in the gender politics of that innocent word, which is always relational -- you can't just be "a spouse," you have to be somebody's spouse. And right now, apparently, she isn't.  

 

I can just hear the shrug in her spirit as she muses, "Keeping on track's another matter of course /  That's the great divisor / You are now the wiser / Maybe just a bit less so." Yeah, she's holding it all together, but it's so much effort. "Touch and go 'til you stop on a dime / All alone at Christmastime."

 

And -- as always in a Michael Penn song -- you've got no one to blame but your own capacity for self-deception. In the last verse she ruefully admits, "Look at your behavior / Looking for a savior / Underneath the mistletoe."  I love the double meaning of savior here -- not Jesus, as the hymns proclaim, but the Mr. Right she's still waiting for.

 

(Yup, this is pretty much the heart-scarred Mann/Penn party line -- read here for more.)

 

A holiday downer?  I suppose it could be. But me, I see it as a compassionate reality check. Why do we feel forced to pretend that our lives are perfect when this season rolls around?  No one's life is perfect.  It's okay to feel loss and melancholy, whatever the calendar says. And if that's where you are in life right now -- well, you've got some pretty comforting company in Aimee Mann and Michael Penn.  

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Tinsel and Marzipan" /

Pugwash and Friends

Talk about a feel-good track. This was released in December 2006 as a benefit for the Irish Epilepsy Association Brainwave.  And, having only this year been seriously turned on to the wonderful music of Pugwash (with their awesome album Play Intimately (As If Among Friends)) I am so delighted to add this tune to my holiday playlist.

With a loping power-pop beat, this track is upbeat, energetic, and entirely what we need when there's only two more shopping days left before Christmas. Sure, it's festive, but the Christmas spirit needs more than trimmings. As lead singer Thomas Walsh explains, "I wrote my letter to Santa Claus / Asking him / If he could bring / Some peace and love to everyone."  The idea's not new, but so far we haven't quite got there, so why not ask again?

And with Walsh's gorgeously easy voice, it sounds so earnest. Keys shift upward and that Wall of Sound effect builds, until it's practically like a little bit of Brian Wilson "Good Vibrations" magic.

Tinsel -- cheap stuff that somehow turns a home into a Christmas miracle. And marzipan, simple candy that gets molded into amazingly artistic shapes.

And what it all comes down to is that can't-ignore-it refrain -- "Merry Christmas everyone" -- with the "and friends" singing lustily along.  It's repeated, and repeated again, until you realize that you too need to sing along. It's like believing in fairies, or knowing that there's no place like home -- say it often enough and it just might come true.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Ain't Nothing Like Christmas" /
Shelby Lynne

I think I missed a day or two in there.  No better reason to post twice (c'mon, it's the solstice) if only to bring you this spot-on tune by Shelby Lynne.

It is funny, the roads we take to find an artist whose music resonates with us. I'd always thought of Shelby Lynne as a country artist and therefore -- mea culpa, but I grew up with Midwestern Hayride and it's a thing with me! -- not worth my time. But then she released this astonishing 2008 album Just a Little Lovin' dedicated to the music of my musical heroine Dusty Springfield, and I became -- like that! -- a Shelby Lynne fan forevs.

How could we not love the laid-back snap and groove of this holiday track?

And yes, I especially love that this video clip is from Live from Daryl's House, wherein one of my longtime musical crushes Daryl Hall hosts an astonishingly well-curated selection of artists.

There is indeed a bit of twang to this track. But it's all copasetic -- "I'll bring the nog / You put on the log" -- and it's a Christmas party.  Not much more to it than that, just folks getting together around the tree.

Whatever you yourself believe, tuck it outta sight, because we need to buy into the spirit of "carols and good cheer." Come on, folks. It don't come but once a year.  Go for it.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" /
The Jigsaw Seen

Okay, I'm starting to get into the mood for Christmas carols, the real stuff.  But I'm not ready yet for the full-on jubilation of "Joy to the World" and "Angels We Have Heard on High."  No, I'm still easing into things with my favorite minor-key carols --  you know, the brooding stuff like "O Come O Come Emmanuel" and "We Three Kings" and ""What Child Is This." 

And of course -- "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." But with a twist, and I do mean a Twist (though I'm not sure Chubby Checker had this in mind...)

Gotta love this band. Based in LA, for nearly 20 years they've been cranking out witty alternative music that's steeped in 60s rock history -- an intriguing mash-up of British Invasion, surf guitar, and flower-power psychedelia. Every song is full of subtle musical references that the band earnestly hopes you'll pick up (catnip to a music nerd like me).

And yes, I do know that three of the band's members -- guitarist Jonathan Lea, bassist Tom Currier, and drummer Teddy Freese -- have been touring with Dave Davies of the Kinks for the past couple of years. Given their crunchy, infectious sound, it's a match made in heaven.)

This holiday track was first released (on red vinyl!) as a single in 1989, only a couple of years after front man Dennis Davison and guitarist Jonathan Lea first founded the band. Dig that sitar-like intro, which then kicks into a thrashing drumbeat that could segue at any minute into the Stone's "Paint It Black" or the Seeds' "Pushing Too Hard."

They may be purveying tidings of comfort and joy (or so the lyrics promise), but the comfort and joy sure haven't happened yet. "Let nothing you dismay"? Sorry, it's 2015, and there's dismay everywhere I look. "To save us all from Satan's power / When we have gone astray"?  Oops . . . too late.

Or is it?

It's a dark world, drawing to the end of a troubled year, and it could go wrong at any moment. With the Jigsaw Seen at the wheel, though, we're driving helter-skelter through that dark night, looking for a red neon "Vacancy" sign up ahead. Even a stable would do....

My Musical Advent Calendar

"Father Christmas" / The Kinks

Sorry. I forgot to open the door on my advent calendar yesterday -- too caught up in the big buzz in Kinkdom. Last night in London, Dave and Ray Davies sang together on stage for the first time in nearly 20 years.  And if you've been following the soap opera of the Davies' brothers lifelong love-hate relationship -- well, you'll know this is major news indeed.

So really, there was no other holiday song I could write about today...

The Kinks have never been big on sugary sentiment, so of course if they were going to do a Christmas song it would have to be something with a thrashing beat, some scathing social commentary, AND -- if we're lucky -- a Ray Davies sigh of sorrow for a world's that gone downhill.

Well, this 1977 single has all that. The basic scenario: The narrator wistfully remembers childhood Christmases when he believed in Santa Claus, even though he knew it was his dad behind it all; but now, a grownup, he's working as a department store Santa and -- no Miracle on 34th Street nonsense here -- he's getting mugged by a pack of street urchins.

That's the infectious chorus -- the sneering Cockney chant of those little punks: "Father Christmas, give us some money / Don't mess around with those silly toys / We'll beat you up if you don't hand it over / We want your bread so don't make us annoyed / Give all the toys to the rich little boys." (I can attest: This is an absurdly satisfying thing to sing aloud with a pack of other people.)

Next, Ray takes down the commercialization of Christmas, with all its crass marketing targeted at  kids: "Don't give my brother a Steve Austin* outfit / Don't give my sister a cuddly toy / Don't want no jigsaw or monopoly money / All we want is the real McCoy."

And for these left-behind kids, the "real McCoy" is  . . . a job for their dads. (Remember 1977 in England? Labor strikes, protests, riots...)  Aw, gee -- but before we can feel too self-righteous, Ray adds, "But if you've got one I'll have a machine gun / So I can scare all the kids on the street." He may sympathize with their poverty, but he's also repelled by the street violence poverty breeds. Talk about Dickensian Christmases -- this is the real spirit of Charles Dickens.

It could be a downer, but it's such an exuberant rocker you can't help but sing along with its goofy energy. The sweet angel-chime tinkling of a glockenspiel is swept aside by Dave Davies's shrewdly snarling guitar riffs, slicing aggressively through the mix; there's a great snappy drumbeat, and Ray's voice punches out that chorus with gusto.

When he gets to the last verse, his God-bless-us-every-one send-off is surprisingly heartfelt: "Have yourself a merry merry Christmas / Have yourself a good time / But remember the kids who got nothin' / While you're drinking down your wine." Not exactly a feel-good ending. But who expected that from the Kinks?

* Note: NOT Stone Cold Steve Austin, the wrestler-turned-actor, but the bionic superhero played by Lee Majors in the Six Million Dollar Man TV series, which was still on the air in 1977.

My Musical Advent Calendar

"I Told Santa Claus" /
Fats Domino

Coulda fooled me. This track showed up on the compilation Hot Rod Holiday, which has been a staple of my family's seasonal listening for years. But in fact it wasn't recorded until 1993. I'm guessing (hoping) that Fats had been trotting out this holiday number for years before it was finally recorded.

Bottom line? Fats is tapping into a bounce piano tradition that's as old as the hills, and as rich as we could want it to be.

 
This song is just this shy of "Merry Christmas Baby," the old sexual innuendo-laden Charles Brown classic. Our singer is humbly addressing Santa Claus, asking for his holiday wish list, and all he's got is -- well, there's this girl...

And yeah, he starts out all hot and heavy: "Oooh wee baby, you sure look good to me / I told Santa Claus I want you under my Christmas tree / I won't need a million dollars, you be enough for me." That road-house piano line pounds away, making everything copasetic.

But it takes him no time at all to specify, "I'm gonna ask you to marry me." And, just to prove his bona fides, he's projecting into the future: "A boy for you / And a ten-pound girl for me." Interesting how he assumes that the mother wants the son, but dad? He's jonesing for the girl child.

Having given birth to a ten-pound girl -- who is an amazing person whom I wouldn't want to have lived without -- I'm totally on board with Fats' agenda.

Let's be real -- this cat is a national treasure, any time of year. I dig that this particular track has a holiday bias, but truly, honestly? Anything Fats does is cool with me.