The Christmas tree went up yesterday in our house. My only contribution, as always was to make sure that it was plumb and put the fairy (angel) on top. L does the rest so well it would be churlish of me to get in her way. I was banished to the dining room where I spent the afternoon drinking tea and listening to various Roddy Frame and Aztec Camera albums. As I have said before The North Star is a criminally, much overlooked album, it has a very redemptive feel to it which suited yesterday's ambiance.
That was a rather long winded preamble to me stating that it is probably time to start posting some festive related tunes. I am not against Christmas songs per se, it is just that you can't seem to get away from them from about September onwards these days and most of them, lets face it are complete shite, written with the main intention being that they become hits and the writers can live off of the royalties for the rest of their days, absolutely fuck all to do with writing good songs. The only thing worse than the completely crap exploitative Christmas songs are the "ironically" covered ones that tend to be recorded by guys with too much facial hair in jeans way too tight to be healthy trying to appeal to the too cool for Christmas indie types that secretly love the festivities as much as the rest of us.
I used to have complete disdain for all Christmas records with the exception of The Phil Spector Christmas album but over the years I have mellowed slightly and enjoy enough of these kind of songs to fill a cd, maybe two at a push but don't panic I will be posting sparingly, as we would not want to over do the festive cheer would we.
Here is the first of my choices, a bit of Yuletide realism. An absolute belter from the Jewel label released in 1965.
Johnny and John - Christmas in Vietnam
Well that was what I was going to post but this fucking laptop won't recognise the ripping device so here is an equally as good bit of Christmas realism from Frightened Rabbit. I have included both the choral version (my favourite) and the one with Scott's vocals, well it is the season for giving after all.
Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop
Frightened Rabbit - It's Christmas So We'll Stop (Choir version)
4 comments:
Nick Lowe's new album is a Xmas special. HIs tongue is firmly in his cheek but it's all very... tastefully done.
What happened to your records of the year post??
Ranting Eberneezer ... love it.
A shame, 'cos that Johnny and John tune is wonderful indeed!
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