Thank you for tuning in.
It was 5 years ago tonight, December 24, 2016 out of sheer boredom, that I came up with this Christmas Eve blogpost. I was stuck at work at the Post and just decided to put together a list of my favorite Christmas songs, and to maybe come up with a couple of my own.
This year we decided to revisit our list of Christmas songs, and move some things around. We’ll repost the two song parodies I did, and show a classic Christmas video. And more!
Enjoy!!
Christmas Song Top 10-2021
1) Do They Know It's Christmas Time-Band Aid- Yeah maybe one of these days, I'll get so sick of this song that it will drop down the list. Hasn't happened yet. Still soounds great 37 years on...
This is a trivia game that my good friend Jenn Ciardullo created a few years back.
Fill in the blank: Who sang what lines in Do They Know It's Christmastime
1) It's Christmas time, there's no need to be afraid
At Christmastime, we let in light and we banish shade.
2) And in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy
Throw your arms around the world at Christmas time.
3) But say a prayer, to pray for the other one
At Christmastime
4) It's hard, but when you're having fun
There's a world outside your window.
4) and 5) and its a world of dread and fear
where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears
5) and 6) and the Christmas bells that ring there
are the clanging chimes of doom.
6) Well tonight thank God it's them instead of you!!!
BONUS QUESTION: There was one American act that was in Band-Aid. Name them
Answers below.
2) Happy Christmas (War is Over) - Plastic Ono Band- Another song I can never get enough of. And I feel like we need the sentiment of the song now more than ever...
3) Oh, Holy Night -Josh Groban - This song has moved into the money, replacing Paul McCartney. I'm sorry the older I get, the more I appreciate it. As my old friend Emily E. O'Connor said of it "It tells you everything you need to know about what Christmas means" I can't put it any better than that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17kiIIxSdC0
4) Wonderful Christmastime -Wings- I feel bad knocking Macca down a notch, especially having spent some of my Thanksgiving weekend with him and the boys. But this is still catchy and fun. I just don't feel the need to hear it as much as I used to.
5) Fairytale of New York-The Pouges with Kirsty McColl- Now this jumped up a whole 5 notches since 2016. During the early days of the pandemic, when they created the awesome Coronavirus Virtual Bar, DJ Teddy Rauert would play this song during his set. Didn't matter if it was Christmas time or Easter or 4th of July. And you know what? It works all year round. Still captures the thrills and the challenges of living in NYC.
6) 7 O'Clock News/Silent Night-Simon and Garfunkel- On one side of your speaker, you hear Simon and Garfunkel singing the classic Silent Night. Out of the other speaker, you hear a newscaster (Charlie O'Donnell of Wheel of Fortune fame according to Wikipedia) reading the news headlines of the day, including the death of comedian Lenny Bruce, the indictment of serial killer Richard Speck, and former Vice President Richard Nixon predicting 5 more years of war in Vietnam.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNyqlx0--i0
Depressing, but powerful. So let's pick it up a little.
7) Christmas in Hollis- Run DMC - I'm not much of a rap fan, but this is the closest song to represent my hometown. The official Christmas song of Queens. Ray told me I had to put this up higher or else I'd have to turn in my Queens passport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OR07r0ZMFb8
8) O Come O Come Emmanuel-Joan Baez- Every year at least once or twice, my hippie parents would gather my sisters and I around the entertainment system, bust out the the incense and the lava lamps, and pop "A Joan Baez Christmas" into the cassette player
Ok so most of that story is bull, but we did have A Joan Baez Christmas in our collection. It was probably a buck and a quarter at some supermarket, which is most likely the reason someone in my house bought it. This is the one song I remember from it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq_6seRbB2U
9) Blue Christmas -Elvis/Porky Pig- The Elvis version is a classic by itself, but the Porky Pig version is hysterical.
10) Grandma got Run Over by a Reindeer Elmo and Patsy- Yes, this song may be coming off the list in a couple years, but it's hanging on. Still makes me chuckle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgIwLeASnkw
FLASHBACK: THE LOST ENDING TO SAME OLD LANG SYNE
5 years ago Weekly Mail discovered the lost lyrics that ended Dan Fogelberg's Christmas Eve Classic Same Old Lang Syne
First here is the song with lyrics.
now after she drives away the lost lyrics pick it up from there...
She started driving on the rain slicked road
After finishing her beer
Her eyes grew heavy and she fell asleep
And she crashed into a deer
The cops arrested her for DUI
She spent Christmas day in jail
And now the profits from this record's sales
Are going towards her bail.
Maybe it's best they left the song as is.
From 2017: A Hoity Toity Christmas
A HOITY-TOITY CHRISTMAS
Sung to Holly-Jolly Christmas
Have a Hoity-Toity Christmas
'Cuz even though it's cold,
Santa brings me lots of things
Made of 14 karat gold
Have a Hoity-Toity Christmas
And check out my new boat
It cuts through ice and goes real nice
with my new full length fur coat
Oh-ho there's a foot of snow
Out in my front yard
But not a snowflake on my Lexus
Or the bow on top of my new car
Have a Hoity Toity Christmas
And don't you shed a tear
Don't resent that the 1%
Will have a hoity toity Christmas
next year
WEEKLY MAIL: THE CHRISTMAS MOVIE
I have a great idea for a Christmas movie. Hear me out……
Chelsea, a woman in her late 20’s comes back to her small hometown from a big city (either NY, LA or Chicago). She’s successful having shot up the corporate ladder, and she seems happy. But there’s something missing and she can’t quite put her finger on it.
On her way home she stops into her town’s local supermarket and runs into her high school sweetheart Stan, who the assistant to the assistant manager of the produce section. He tells her that he’s hoping to get promoted soon but he doesn’t really get along with the store’s owner, who happens to be his father.
She heads home to her parents house and is greeted by her younger brother Stu, who just flunked out of community college and is now thinking of joining the Army. Mom and Dad, Betty Sue and Barney and both disappointed about Stu and now worried sick that he’s going to end up getting killed in some foreign country. They are overjoyed that Chelsea their child who isn’t a screwup is home for the holidays.
But Betty Sue starts to pick up that Chelsea isn’t happy. After some coffee and prodding, Chelsea tells her Mom that she’s working 80 hours a week for a hedge fund owned by a 30 year old trust fund baby who seems like he’s always hitting on her.
(OK we better back date this to about 2013, or better yet, let’s make it during the Bush administration, yeah that’s it! That way we can have Stu wanting to go after Osama Bin Laden, but Mom and Dad worried that he’ll end up in Iraq. I like it! I like it!)
Betty Sue urges Chelsea to move back home to Vermont, (or Minnesota or Oregon depending where “the big city” is) but Chelsea can’t just pack up and leave her dream job. She’s way too important to the company, at least that’s what Alister, her scumbag boss keeps telling her.
The Christmas jamboree is coming up tomorrow at the town hall. Everyone is going to be there including Stan, whose Dad is a) closing the grocery store early and b) donating the beer, soda and pretzels.
Chelsea reluctantly decides to go. She doesn’t feel like talking about her life in the big city, but she wants to see her old friends, none of which have left Happy Hollow (I’m totally winging this).
At the Jamboree, Chelsea gets a bit drunk and ends up dancing and eventually making out with Stan. It doesn’t really matter, since she’s single and heading back to the big city for New Year’s Eve. (Or should we give her a guy in the big city? Nah, she’s working too many hours to date)
But now as Christmas approaches Chelsea is in a pickle. Head back to the big city where she’s rich but miserable? Or stay here in Happy Hollow, VT (MN, OR) and be poor but happy. And what about Stan? Was this just a one time fling or are the old feelings coming back?
To throw another wrench into the works, Alister the scumbag hedge fund honcho back in the big city was arrested on the 23rd for insider trading and cavorting with prostitutes. They want to replace Alister with Chelsea as head of the hedge fund and they need her back in the big city the day after Christmas.
Chelsea had all of this on her mind as she and her parents and Stu headed to Christmas Eve Services at the Church of Miracles. As Reverend Bob talked about the true meaning of Christmas and following your heart and like that, Chelsea had an epiphany. She call the big shots in NY or LA or Chicago the day after Christmas and tell them to take their offer and sh….we’ll she’ll say thanks but no thanks. She’ll start her own business right there in Happy Hollow. She’d tell Stan how she felt about him and he could help start the new business. Stu could take over for Stan as the assistant to the assistant manager of the produce section.
The whole town met up around the Christmas tree in Happy Hollow Square. They sang Joy to the World….no Hark the Herald Angels Sing…..no no no, Angels We Have Heard on High!!!!
Glooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooria! In excelcis Day yay yo!
THE END
Whaddaya think?
What? It’s already been done? A million times on the Hallmark Channel?
Well never mind then. We will tweak it for next year.
CHRISTMAS VIDEO
Fans of the Twilight Zone will recall the classic Night of the Meek episode, where a drunken department store Santa, miserable because of all the poverty in the town where he works/lives, finds a bag of unlimited gifts.
The original starred Ed Norton himself, Art Carney. The version we’ll be showing here tonight is from 1985, with Soap/Empty Nest star Richard Mulligan as Santa.
Hope you all enjoyed this.
Merry Christmas
******************************************************************************************************************************
Answers to Do They Know It's Christmas Time Trivia
1) Paul Young
2) Boy George
3) George Michael
4) Simon LeBon
5) Sting
6) Bono
BONUS: Kool and the Gang
No comments:
Post a Comment