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You are here: Home / Music / Song of the week

Song of the week

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Another Xmas song, from JPK.  I like this one.

Beach Boys, “Little Saint Nick” (1963)
I think only one person mentioned this the other day in DougJ’s Christmas music thread, so maybe I’m OK here (apologies to BrYanS). I do love the Beach Boys all up and down their catalog (and never mind the occasional misbegotten politics, better not to dwell). They may seem among the least likely to deliver on the Christmas fare in Southern California, and all that, but I really go for this spry corruption of “Little Deuce Coupe,” which seems to me happy and jaunty in just the ways that Christmas music is supposed to be. It never fails to put a glow on my darkest December days, that’s for sure. Wikipedia: “Despite a media-hushed Christmas in mourning for recently assassinated President John F. Kennedy, the single went into the Top Tens of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento, Milwaukee, Vancouver and Washington DC.” Beatlemania was not far behind.

Also too, how about a discussion of greatest Christmas album ever. I will go with Stevie Wonder’s Someday At Christmas.

Reader Interactions

78Comments

  5. 5.

    lamh35

    Doug J we should just get married now, cause by gawd Stevie Wonder’s Christmas album is by far one of my favorites, but so is Stevie.

    Um, I know it’s heard in darn near every Christmas commercial, film, tv move etc, but I LOVE “That’s What Christmas Means To Me” and “One Little Christmas Tree” still makes me feel both warm and fuzzy, but also emotional.

    Oh and Stevie’s version of “Ave Maria” gives me ear-gasms whenever I hear it.

  9. 9.

    DougJ

    @lamh35:

    I also love “That’s What Christmas Means To Me”.

    What’s great about the Stevie Wonder Christmas album is that it’s contemporary and socially conscious, while still being fun and listenable.

  10. 10.

    Linda Featheringill

    I heard Burl Ives doing “Have a Jolly Christmas” and it made me feel good. Then I realized that it probably would make you feel nauseous and immediately felt even better. Maybe there is a Santa Claus.

    :-)

  11. 11.

    MikeJ

    Here’s the albums I dig out:
    The Beatles xmas singles
    Bela Fleck & the Flecktones – Jingle All the Way
    Frank Sinatra – The Christmas Collection
    Christmas with the Rat Pack
    St Etienne – A Glimpse of Stocking
    Motown xmas
    Just Can’t Get Enough – New Wave Xmas (Los Lobos, TMBG, Chris Stamey, XTC, Pretenders)

    Still looking for the dB’s xmas single.

  15. 15.

    Steeplejack

    @DougJ:

    Glad you revived the Christmas music discussion. I was way too late to the last one.

    Sort of in line with “Little Saint Nick,” I have always thought of the Trade Winds’ “New York’s a Lonely Town” as a quasi-Christmas song, or at least a seasonally appropriate song. Think it has to do with the heavy use of the “Sleigh Ride” bells in the background.

    Don’t know if it’s the best Christmas album, but my favorite is still Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas. Relentlessly old-school, I know.

  18. 18.

    lamh35

    As I’ve said in the past I’m an R&B girl. So my favorite Christmas albums are all with an R&B flavor.

    Contemporary R&B: Luthor Vandross – This Is Christmas (1995). It’s Luther, he’s singing and I can actually listen to “Every Year, Every Christmas” even during non-Holiday times.

    Contemporary Gospel: BeBe & CeCe Winans – First Christmas (1993). Their version of “The First Noel” is fantastic.

    Classic Pop/R&B??? – Nat King Cole – Christmas Album. A Voice like Velvet. Between “Christmas Song”, “Joy To The World” and “Caroling, Caroling” I don’t know what’s my fav, but it’s one CD during Christmas Time that I don’t mind hearing on a loop.

    Oldie R&B – Motown Christmas. By far my favorite I guess. I kid you not, I love every song on it. I dare anyone NOT to love The Temptations “Silent Night”, the BEST version of that song like ever, IMHO…lol.

  19. 19.

    Zach

    Was working at Starbucks the other day and they almost ruined this song for me by playing it 5 times in and hour. Luckily, it’s awesome enough to withstand that kind of abuse.

  23. 23.

    Jager

    @pete: That would be a gun in your mouth. Just enough to chip your teeth a little.

    I wonder if Phil gets to wear his high heeled boots in the pen?

  24. 24.

    Steeplejack

    FYWP! Comment dropped through the moderation trapdoor, and I have no idea why.

    Oh, wait–maybe too many links. I forget that “reply” links count too. Damn your eyes, WP!

  25. 25.

    Mnemosyne

    @Zach:

    You might like “Tis the Season for Los Straitjackets” by (yes) Los Straitjackets. I think I got that one from Amazon, too.

    I also have the Booker T. & the MGs Christmas album. I tend to like instrumentals, I guess.

  26. 26.

    burnspbesq

    After “Phil Spector’s Christmas Album,” which is indescribably delicious, I tend to go to Bruce Cockburn’s “Christmas.” There’s also an anthology called “Christmas Guitars” that’s pretty interesting.

    And there’s always this.

  29. 29.

    Steeplejack

    John Fahey’s Christmas album The New Possibility (1968) is an excellent one for background listening. And I mean “background” in the best possible sense. Good for parties, dinner, etc. Song snippets at the link.

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    [Stripped-down version of my moderated comment]

    @Yutsano:

    Great version!

    Now I am searching high and low for what I realized is my favorite Christmas album—a “mix” CD I burned years ago of jazz versions of Christmas songs. I can’t even remember most of the songs on it now, but it was killer. Finished up with John Coltrane’s 10-minute version of “Greensleeves.”

    @lamh35:

    Oh, yeah, and it also had Lou Rawls doing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

  31. 31.

    lamh35

    @burnspbesq:

    N’awlins born and raised…I knew how to say “the Neville brothers rock” before I learned to say “momma and dadda”…lol.

    Aaron Neville’s “Please Come Home For Christmas” is played in every house in NOLA on Christmas day at least once!

  33. 33.

    pete

    The album category is hard, because lots of them have dead air included. Nat King Cole is classic but James Brown’s Funky Christmas is a bit disappointing (though I haven’t replayed it for this thread), and even Elvis’s is padded out with (great) non-Xmas gospel material. Can’t let the thread go by without linking this, though.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    The Holly and the Ivy is a favorite of mine but I enjoy all the Carols from Clare College. The holiday season is also the time to listen to The Nutcracker.

  35. 35.

    lamh35

    @srv:

    Bucket List Item #1,000,000,000,001 – See Stevie Wonder, Prince and Morris Day and The Time in concert.

    Oh and “someday at Christmas” is timeless. Lyrics, sadly STILL fits today.

  36. 36.

    Steeplejack

    Holy shnikeys! How could I forget Willie Nelson’s Pretty Paper? Excellent Christmas album with straight-ahead (not country) arrangements behind Nelson’s leathery voice.

  38. 38.

    lamh35

    @burnspbesq:

    If the Marsalis family is NOLA jazz royalty, then the Neville family are down-home, dirty soul, bluesy royalty. If you are from the “ghetto” in NOLA (like I am) your brain might like the Marsalis’, but your heart and soul belongs to the Neville family…lol.

  40. 40.

    Svensker

    @Yutsano:

    It’s such a beautiful song. Gord’s original version is spine tingling but it’s hard to find for some obscure reason. Always makes me shed a sweet tear.

  41. 41.

    Trooptrap Tripetrope

    Gotta go with the original soundtrack album of A Charlie Brown Christmas. All the tracks are great, but Guaraldi’s “Christmastime Is Here” perfectly captures the slight touch of melancholy that is invariably part of Christmas for me.

  43. 43.

    burnspbesq

    @lamh35:

    I’ve been on that bandwagon since “Cabbage Alley.” I played in a band in high school with a guy whose sister went to what was then known as Sophie Newcomb College, and she brought the records home for him.

  44. 44.

    BD of MN

    perhaps my snark valve is permanently stuck wide open (I blame BJ, Charles Pierce and Doghouse Riley mostly), but I have a burned CD of the various South Park Christmas songs that gets played regularly in the mommy van.

    Big grins ensue…

    Santa and Jesus Lounge duet

  46. 46.

    Svensker

    @lamh35:

    Living in Los Angeles in the early 80s I was privileged to see the Nevilles with the Wild Tchoupitoulas in a small venue. I’d never heard the Nevilles and they were absolutely electrifying. Wow. I’ll never forget that night.

    In other musical news, Enchanted Carols, which is traditional music played on Victorian music boxes, hand bells and other strange and wonderful instruments, is one of my favorites. So cheery yet nostalgic. And you sure don’t hear it every day!

  47. 47.

    Svensker

    @Yutsano:

    Hey, you found it! I musta looked last year before it was uploaded. The other Gord versions are done much later when his voice was really going.

    Thanks!

    ETA, also, too @Steeplejack: :)

  52. 52.

    Yutsano

    @efgoldman: Holy cwap dude! You heal up and we’ll manage things around here. My grandfather just had a stroke, and even at 90 has regained almost all the function he had before. They’ve made some marvelous progress over the last few years here.

    And all neurologists suck. Every. Single. Last. One. Of. Them.

  57. 57.

    scav

    Depends utterly on the momentary whim but I do tend to return to The Boston Camerata’s An American Christmas and to Joan Baez’s Noel (for intensely nostalgic reasons). Clearly, the more serious whims here. Silly this year seems to be these from ISIHAC. After that it gets chaotic. Brave Combo, Lounge, King’s College, Bells, Music Boxes. . . A definitive absence of Little Drummer Boys and Silver Bells, but other chestnuts in moderation.

  60. 60.

    DougJ

    @lamh35:

    I can’t get into the Marsali, except for Bradford. I can’t put my finger on why, but I just don’t like Wynton’s playing that much.

    Also too, I have friends who have worked with them and they the Marsali are phenomenal assholes

  61. 61.

    Svensker

    @Yutsano:

    No problem with anyone doing a cover of anyone’s song — as long as it’s good. :) Music is meant to be shared.

    @Steeplejack:

    Nice one! Gord was really good. We were recently in Orillia Ontario (very pretty place) which turned out to be Lightfoot’s hometown, where he sang in the church choir and aced the pole vault.

  63. 63.

    Peter VE

    Phil Spector – A Christmas Gift to You
    The Roches – We Three Kings
    Cyndi Lauper – Merry Christmas…Have A Nice Life!

  64. 64.

    Steeplejack

    @Svensker:

    “Apology” is from Sunday Concert (1969), which captures Lightfoot at his best. You can still get it in a two-fer set with Early Lightfoot.

    Bonus: “The Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle” is a hundred times better than “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”

    You can hear song snippets at this other link, but I think the set above is the better deal.

  65. 65.

    Cat Lady

    The Messiah. I have the Trevor Pinnock version with the English Concert Choir from Archiv. It’s the only thing I can listen to after a gentle wonderful soul and long time friend tells you his myeloma is Stage III and mostly in his spine.
    :(

  67. 67.

    planetjanet

    The greatest Christmas album ever was John Denver and the Muppets. I love Animal shouting “Run, Run, Reindeer” of the chorus of “Little Saint Nick”. “When the River Meets the Sea” brings tears to my eyes.

  69. 69.

    reflectionephemeral

    A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector and The Beach Boys Christmas Album are my two favorites.

    The first side of the Beach Boys’ album is songs like “Little Saint Nick”, early Brian-sounding original pop songs with great melodies, and the second side features an orchestra on classics. Maybe I just have a high cheesiness tolerance, but I love the harmonies on the second side, like in “We Three Kings of Orient Are”.

  73. 73.

    mattH

    Charlie Brown Christmas for sure. Only song missing is Little Birdie, even though that’s Thanksgiving.

  76. 76.

    billd

    culled from childhood memories of my father’s album collection….

    burl ives (the one with “Santa Mouse”)

    joan baez Noel (musical arrangements by Peter Schickele, the musicologist beghind PDQ Bach)

    jose feleciano’s first xmas record (yellow, with a bow on the cover) Feliz Navidad

    and for classical music, the most gorgeous string music is from CHRISTMAS CONCERTOS. Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karajan. DGG 2530 070 (L2-35).

  77. 77.

    Suzan

    Even Santa Gets the Blues. Hands down. Includes:
    I Want You With Me At Christmas – Jesse Belvin
    LA Christmas Blues – Hadda Brooks
    So Glad You Were Born – Isaac Hayes
    and others

  78. 78.

    MarkJ

    I love Carols from Christmas, Volumes 1 and 2 – it’s a very large collection of classic carols being sung by the Royal College of Music Chamber Choir under the direction of Sir David Willcocks, and it is absolutely great. It’s unfortunately out of print but is available at Amazon.

    On the pop side of things Ella Fitzgerald’s “Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas” is never mentioned among the greats, but should be. I’d rank it up there with the classic Bing recordings, Sinatra, or Nat King Cole’s classic.

    One single from the ’80s that should be mentioned: The Pretenders’ 2000 Miles is a great Christmas song.

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