New posts will be up each weekday from now until December 24th.
Enjoy.
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Song # 50: Tom Waits - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis
I acknowledge that Tom Waits isn't for everyone, but once you get through the scratchy, and somewhat flat rendition of Silent Night you come to one of Waits better expositional set of lyrics, a Christmas card from a hooker to the father of her unborn child before Christmas. It is easy to forget now-a-days that Christmas cards carried much more weight in the past than they do in an age of constant connection through phone and internet. When Waits' hooker sends a Christmas card to a former lover (client?) its a deeply touching and personal account of the hardships that the past year has brought, and quite possibly the only contact she will have with him until next Christmas--or at least until after Valentine's day. Waits narrates through the past year of this poor womans life, from getting married to a trombone player and cleaning herself up to memories of the hair grease her former lover used to use (breaking into Little Anthony and the Imperials).
Waits has the luxury of being talented and offbeat enough that a Christmas song based on a hooker's correspondence with a former lover is not only accepted as par for the course, but sweet and funny despite the sketchy subject matter. Waits rolls through a year's worth of pain and suffering with alternating heartbreak and humor before the letter takes an abrupt turn when the narrator admits that she was lying throughout the letter, and she needs money for a lawyer.
It is ann unexpected, yet humorous turn before he launches into a final verse of Silent Night. Tom Waits wouldn't have it any other way.
Song #49: Charles Brown - Santa's Blues
From one non-traditional Christmas song to another. In a Christmas music landscape dominated by pop music renditions of traditional songs and way too much adult contemporary, it is nice to take a break and listen to some sweet blues infused Christmas music.
Brown's Santa's Blues is a swinging full band blues piece with just enough lyrics to set up a series of great bluesy solos from the band. Brown sings two simple little blues verses lamenting the fact that the narrator has been good all year yet his woman still left him, and his one desire is for Santa to send her back to him. What follows is a series of beautiful solos from a tenor sax, guitar, and piano that really move over the swinging beat of the drums and bass.
The song clocks in at just over three minutes, but that is plenty of respite from a genre that focuses more on pop-music sheen than good ol' soul music.
Song #48: Wham! - Last Christmas
In 1000 years when an futuristic civilization wants to know what the 80's were like during the holiday season, they would be hard pressed to find a more stereotypical representation than the four and a half minute music video for Wham!'s Last Christmas. This video might be the definitive statement on 80's hair styles and ugly sweaters.
A large group of friends take a cable car up to a mountain retreat for a Christmas celebration. George Michael is the main focus of the video, and spends his time (other than pretending he isn't gay) longing for the woman he spent the last Christmas with--who is now with another man. I can tell he is infatuated with her because of the number of heartbroken glances he shoots her as she helps decorate the house, sits next to her new beau during dinner, and also because he sits just beyond a fence looking forlorn as the rest of the gang has a snowball fight. Apparently music video directors in the 80's wanted to make real sure the audience understood what was going on. Luckily the video was lo tech enough to be spared some poor animation such as Michael's heart beating out of his chest as his love walked past.
If George Michael were still making music videos today I would like to think he could give Kanye a run for his money in the ridiculously decadent short film department.
Song #47: U2 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
This isn't the best version of Phil Spector's 1963 Christmas hit (more on that later, I assure you), but it is U2 at their Christmas best. The band does a good job rocking out to Spector's original arrangement and laying down enough backing vocals to give Bono a chance to do what he does best: take his vocal performance as close to "over the top" as possible.
Despite the unfortunate hat that Bono wears in the video, U2 does the song justice. Ultimately this performance falls short of the gold standard for this song, but there were few people better at getting the most out of a simple pop song than Phil Spector.
Song #46: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Christmas All Over Again
Unfortunately this song will be the solitary shout out to the best Christmas movie sequel of all time, Home Alone 2 (nudging out Die Hard 2 and The Santa Claus 2 in the category of the only three Christmas movie sequels I could think of. If you don't consider Die Hard a Christmas movie, you are crazy).
This is the song that Kevin listens to as he gets on the wrong plane and ends up in New York. Tom Petty and the gang provide a nice original rocker that I could see myself getting lost in also.
"It's Chrisssssssstmassssssss all ovvvvvverrrrrrrr again."
That seems like as good a place as any to conclude this first day of the countdown. Stop by in the coming weeks for more music, movies, and TV specials.
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