Word: songfulness
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...Band era to the Christmas hits of the previous two decades (no spirituals here) and supplements the tambourine-and-drum pulse of the Spector sound with chimes, sleigh bells and a million maracas. The Crystals' propulsive version of "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" might be my favorite Christmas song ever. This is a meticulous Christmas album: you'll hear rarely used intros and second choruses to go along with the excellent sax solos and samplings of faux Mozart. Like his singers, Spector was still a kid in 1963; he turned 23 the day after Christmas. And he still...
...Town," sounded a declaration of war against the Christmas-music tradition. As Elvis growled and screamed it: "Hang up your pretty stockin's / Turn off de light / Santa Claus is comin' / Down the old chimney tonight." Sexually explicit enough for ya? The title track - which lyrically is just another song about being alone or lonely on a holiday that's meant to reunite loved ones - was sung as a cry of sexual deprivation. Elvis' "White Christmas" borrows heavily from the 1954 doo-wop version by Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters; but most of the other renditions are not so extreme...
...Reissued this year as Christmas With Peggy Lee, this innovative album contains many less familiar songs, including three of the singer-songwriter's own compositions ("Don't Forget to Feed the Reindeer," "Christmas Carousel" and "The Tree"). Lee could bring as much sex to singing as Elvis; but whereas he was singing from the gut and the gutter, she was the voice of mature eroticism. She sexualizes a neutral song like "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town" (undermelody: "Big fat Santa's on his way"), turning Saint Nick into a sugar daddy. Mostly, though, the mood is one of longing...
...tolerate) only one Christmas album, this is it. Among the 17 tracks are Bing's "White Christmas," Elvis' "Blue Christmas," Nat's "The Christmas Song," Johnny's "Sleigh Ride," Eartha Kitt's "Santa Baby," Sarah MacLachlan's "Song for a Winter's Night" and, to go out on a note of heartbreak, Judy Garland's original of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." We'll be playing this one forever, if the fates allow...
...lullaby to the baby Jesus, and mines all the yearning in "I'll Be Home for Christmas." Addressing not just Christmas but all the chilly months, Wintersong is truly a seasonal CD. My favorite pieces are by two of the singer's fellow Canadians. Gordon Lightfoot's "Song for a Winter's Night" is another lonely-in-the-cold ballad - "If I could only have you near / To breathe a sigh or two / I would be happy just to hold the hands I love / On this winter's night with you" - that McLachlan treats as both a prayer...