2023-12-22 20:13:44
There is Christmas life beyond Mariah Carey, of course. And also beyond ‘Feliz Navidad’ by José Feliciano (or Boney M), and beyond ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham!, and beyond Raphael’s specials, and beyond the 26,496 versions of ‘Noche of peace’ that those responsible for Spotify found when they began to do the math.
Christmas music is an endless and inexhaustible universe that continues and continues to expand, but you have to be careful with it, because there is also death beyond Mariah Carey, José Feliciano, Raphael, etc. Hidden among the tinsel of the tree and the moss of the nativity scene lurk nameless horrors: things like the makinero carols of ‘Total Christmas’, ‘Christmas in Smurfland’, The Jeep Nuns or (don’t try it, please ) The Little Chipmunks of Lalo Guerrero.
In this small playlist, we will turn to a few timeless classics that deserve greater presence, combined with lesser-known songs and, anyway, maybe some geek gem.
Dean Martin
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!
Christmas goes especially well with the music of the 40s and 50s, which, even though we are in the living room of our 60 square meter apartment, makes us feel sophisticated, in a beautifully decorated mansion, in front of a lit fireplace and, in the case of Dean Martin, with a drink of something delicious in his hand. Actually, ‘Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!’ It is not even a Christmas song, because it does not refer to the holidays and was composed during a heat wave, but it has become a classic covered a thousand times. Dean first published it in 1959: “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…”.
Wizzard
I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday
It is an irresistible Christmas song (what the hell, an irresistible song, just like that) and on top of that it comes seasoned with a children’s choir, which is something that always feels good at this time of year. The signature Wizzard, a project by Roy Wood (co-founder of the Electric Light Orchestra) who is remembered above all for this overwhelming and jingle-like single from 1973. «I wish it could be Christmas every day, / when the children start singing and the band start playing.” We are faced with a rare example of a song that, while it is playing, manages to make what it proposes come true.
Santiago Delgado and the Runaway Lovers
You will not miss
There are few groups in the world more Christmassy than Santiago Delgado and the Runaway Lovers, a band that, as soon as these dates arrive, seem to sprout the beards of Santa Claus, or King Melchior, or Olentzero, who are from Bilbao for that reason. . Delgado and company have accumulated a copious production of Christmas songs and always offer a themed concert in late December or early January. We are left with this exciting ‘Tú no missing’, from his 2015 album ‘ Quiero ser Santa ‘, with a capital letter.
Gene Autry
Frosty The Snowman
We’re going back to the 50s (1950, in fact) with one of the most sparkling songs dedicated to these holidays. Some kids find a silk hat, put it on a snowman and, wonder!, good old Frosty starts playing and jumping with them. The cowboy Gene Autry, who had already made a splash with his recording of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’, repeated his success with the story of Frosty (something like Ice Cream or Frosty) and its inevitable sad ending: «Frosty the snowman / “He knew the sun was hot that day, / so he said, ‘Let’s run and have fun / now, before I melt.'”
The Ronettes
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
The Jackson 5 also recorded it, and very well, but the Ronettes’ version allows us to use one of the exemplary albums in this classy Christmas setting, ‘A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector’, with which The legendary producer congratulated the world and increased his bank account back in 1963. The song, whose original dates back to the early 1950s, presents us with the stupor of a child who catches his mother being very affectionate with Santa Claus. “How fun it would have been / if dad could have seen / how mom kissed Santa Claus last night.” It is already known that the lyrics have two interpretations: in one, Santa Claus is a lively person who gives himself some joys; In another, well, we know that sometimes all these magical figures look a lot like parents.
The border between a carol and a simple Christmas song is never entirely clear, but it seems obvious that this beauty published in 2008 by the Catalans Manel fits perfectly into the first category: it even has zambomba and, of course, children’s choirs. The lyrics are full of discoveries: a wise man has fallen asleep and his camel has to be in charge of delivering gifts, so the poor guy asks a taxi driver for directions, climbs the balconies and “looks into the manger.” and it is attractive, there among the moss, crossing a river.
Augie Rios
Where is Santa Claus?
More kids! Augie Ríos, a New Yorker, son of Puerto Rican immigrants, hit the big time in 1958 with the tender and addictive ‘Where’s Santa Claus?’, which in its different versions has become a curious intercultural classic. Apparently, Augie died at Christmas 2019, at the age of 73, but every time December arrives we find him again, perpetuated in those 12 years, looking nervously out the window and asking: “Mamacita, where is Santa Claus?” ».
Do you doubt the magic of Christmas? How dare they, if it even gets the great curmudgeon Bob Dylan to get this crazy and playful? In 2009, a few years before becoming the Nobel Prize winner in literature, the eminent singer-songwriter from Minnesota recorded this version of a Christmas polka published for the first time in the early 1960s. Dylan raises his deep doubts (who has a long beard and white, who comes on a special night, who wears red boots and a suit, who laughs going ho-ho-ho?) and the chorus makes it clear to him that, without a doubt, that must be Santa Claus. Ah, at a certain point in the song, the mischievous Bob combines the names of the reindeer with the surnames of United States presidents.
The third album by the Americans Big Star is one of the cursed albums par excellence in the history of rock: the musicians who participated in it did not even think that it would be released, but in the end it came out in 1978 and has ended up becoming an acclaimed album of cult. It includes everything from ‘Holocaust’, an excellent candidate for the saddest song in history, to this unexpected ‘Jesus Christ’, which tells without detours or irony the joy at the birth of Jesus Christ. Here we are going to hear it in the very naked interpretation of the model. Ah, Surfin’ Bichos did a fantastic version in Spanish.
Ezequiel Benitez
mother’s bell ringers
In a self-respecting Christmas compilation, flamenco has to appear somewhere, one of the genres that feel Christmas, its mystery and its joy most deeply. And the fascinating Christmas carol ‘Los campanilleros’, with its tremendous melodic and emotional demands, is always a good option. Here we have a very special version: the Jerez singer Ezequiel Benítez recorded it in 2003 with the lyrics written by his father, the flamencologist Alfredo Benítez.
Tracey Thorn, whom the world still remembers as 50% of Everything But The Girl, released an entire album of Christmas-related songs in 2012: it’s titled ‘Tinsel and Lights’, with which most of us have already learned how to say tinsel in English) and in it appears this original composition: ‘Joy’ is a song to Christmas as a refuge from illness and the certainty that our Loved ones may soon disappear. In fact, it starts with a medical diagnosis. «When someone very dear / calls you with the words ‘everything is fine’ / it’s what you want to hear / but you know it may be different in the new year. / That’s why, that’s why / we hung the lights very high. / Happiness!”.
The Andrews Sisters
Jing-A-Ling, Jing-A-Ling
Aren’t they already missing that retro atmosphere that seems to define the Christmas of dreams? Well, let’s go for another infallible dose: the vocal trio The Andrews Sisters worked thoroughly on this genre and, in fact, signed with Bing Crosby one of the best-selling versions of the ubiquitous ‘Jingle Bells’. But here we are going to go for another of their Christmas candies, which curiously is also about the little noise made by the sleigh bells, in this case driving at full speed. “Jing, jing-a-ling, jing-a-ling, jing-a-ling, / the bells make the snowflakes dance,” intone the sisters, queens of the onomatopoeic tongue twister.
Marisol
my christmas song
“Marisol now interprets for us, in a new facet of her art, with her pleasant girlish voice, these delicious Christmas carols full of naivety, emotion and feeling,” announced the folder of the four-track EP ‘Marisol at Christmas’, published in 1960. The most fun thing about ‘My Christmas Song’, beyond its frenetic accompaniment of a bottle of anise, is the audacity with which it combines the Christian and solemn aspect of the holidays with its more playful and gluttonous side: «Mecachis, what “Well, nougat tastes good” is the verse to which the lyrics return again and again.
The Priests & Shane MacGowan
Little Drummer Boy
This Christmas song should be ‘Fairytale of New York’, by The Pogues, one of the great contemporary contributions to the genre: the recently deceased Shane MacGowan, who sings the song half with Kirsty MacColl and composed it with his sidekick Jem Finer, he deserves that posthumous tribute. But there is also life beyond ‘Fairytale’, even if it is worse: in 2010 good old Shane offered to sing ‘The Drummer Boy’ with The Priests, a trio of dapper Northern Irish priests, and the truth is that it is very funny to see them together . One of the little fathers, Eugene O’Hagan, already said that music “builds bridges and puts us in creative contact with unlikely company.” Ah, Catholic diplomacy!
R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Geekism has also given rise to its festive classics, and in that classification ‘Christmas in the Stars’ has reigned for many years, the hallucinogenic Christmas album of ‘Star Wars’, narrated by C-3PO (well, by the actor Anthony Daniels ), sprinkled with electronic sounds from R2-D2 and published in 1980. There are songs with titles as seductive as ‘What can you give a Wookiee for Christmas (if he already has a comb)’, but the option of ‘R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ is more or less inevitable due to a silly little detail: here the vocalist is a 17-year-old kid who was hired to sweep the recording studios and his name was Jon Bongiovi. It was his first professional record and, well, you can imagine that in his later career he changed his last name to Bon Jovi. More magic!
#Christmas #songs #life #Mariah #Carey