Category: Music

Advent song for December 9: My Dear Acquaintance (A Happy New Year)

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

This song made it in, then made it out again on the basis that I don’t really know any songs by Regina Spektor, then made it back in again when I (a) listened to this song (it’s amazing!), (b) listened to some songs by Regina Spektor (she’s amazing!) and (c) had it recommended by Mark, who is both a musician AND Sweeney’s friend so of course he gets to make a pick. (Two, actually, so keep paying attention.)

Regina Spektor, like Sia, is the sort of singer I should like to be. This number is a golden oldie, recorded in 1960 by Peggy Lee and I’m sure by various other artists at various other times. But this version is gorgeous, even though it has helicopter and gunshot sound effects for reasons which I cannot discern. But listen to the backing vocals! Gorgeous. Best served with a glass of mulled wine/ginger and lemon tea (I am still a bit ill) and some friends around a piano.

Advent song for December 8: Do You Hear What I Hear?

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I have a treat for you today, since it’s Friday. Alicia Keys hasn’t (as far as I’ve been able to find out) written a Christmas song but she has sung a bunch of them, including a version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Happy Christmas (War Is Over) with Tim McGraw, which was nearly today’s song. But then I thought, if we’re going to allow duets with men (and we are; for reasons that should be dazzlingly obvious if you are a fan of Christmas music and brilliant women singer-songwriters) then we should also allow duets with muppets, because muppets are super Christmassy and everyone loves them. So here to send you on your Friday with gladness in your heart are Alicia and Elmo with one of the very best carols of all.

Advent song for December 7: Cherry Tree Carol

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

It’s time for some calming country music. There are lots of versions of the Cherry Tree Carol, and plenty sung by women, and quite a few sung by women who are also songwriters, but I picked Emmylou Harris’s version because – well, because it’s the best, with apologies to Joan Baez and Judy Collins. It’s cold and windy and we need cheering, and this is a cheery version. Draw up a chair, it’s time to light the fire.

 

Advent song for December 6: Snowman

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I love Sia. She is almost exactly my age (well, actually she’s much older, but we would have been in the same year at school), she is a fabulous songwriter and performer, and she does exactly as she pleases with utter disregard for other people’s opinions. I would like to be like Sia. This year she has released a Christmas album, so for the first time in Glad All Over advent history here is a song that has only been out for a matter of weeks. The album never hits the heights of Chandelier (if I hadn’t been out drinking svařák and eating halušky at the Prague Christmas market I’d have made some kind of a ceiling-related joke here), but it is likeable and listenable, the way songs are when a brilliant songwriter dashes them off in an hour, and this is my favourite of them all. Veselé Vánoce!

Advent song for December 5: The Land Of Christmas (Mary)

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

What I like about this song is that it’s so completely and essentially Carly Simon that it’s impossible to tell what era it dates from. Go on, have a guess. No, go on. It’s from 2002! Did you get it right? I somehow thought it was from the eighties, although I guess the production values are maybe not quite right for that. This is from her album Christmas Is Almost Here, making it the perfect advent song. I am writing in a hurry because I have to be on a plane to Prague in just over two hours, so tomorrow’s song will come from the land of Good King Wenceslas. Na zdraví!

Advent song for December 4: O Holy Night

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Welcome to the first artist who is here for her mad skillz rather than for a specific song: you can’t have a list of the best women singer-songwriters without Tracy Chapman on it, duh. And this version of O Holy Night is a perfect showcase for her beautiful voice. Are you calm? If you’re calm, this will suit your mood perfectly. If you’re not calm, listen to this and you will be.

Advent song for December 3: Don’t Forget To Feed The Reindeer

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Did you know that Peggy Lee had a Christmas album? I mean, I suppose most crooners (and she is one, which is why she is featuring on our first Crooners’ Sunday of 2017) have a Christmas album, but what sets Peggy’s aside is that she wrote about half the songs on it, including this one. It is a little more middle-of-the-road than our first two entries, but no less charming for that. If you want to know (or remember) what Christmas sounded like in 1960, here’s your answer.

If you like this, there’s a whole lot more where that came from.

 

Advent song for December 2: Christmas Tree

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

From the sublime to the ridiculous and back again, because what Kate Bush and Lady Gaga have in common is that they are both both, more than almost anyone else. I love this song and it makes me want to dance like Gaga which, let’s be clear, I cannot do.

If you don’t like this song never fear, it is – like all the best songs not counting November Rain – under three minutes long.

Advent Song for December 1: December Will Be Magic Again

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I can’t think how we’ve never had this theme before, but it works out nicely because if there was ever a year to celebrate the achievements of Phenomenal Women (thank you, Maya Angelou), 2017 is it. So here are Christmas songs from twenty-four of my favourite female singer-songwriters, although I will definitely have missed some good ones so feel free, as always, to send me your nominations.

Point of information: some of the artists that will be featured have written amazing songs, but never a Christmas song. In those cases I have decreed that it is OK to have them singing someone else’s Christmas song, because they are too important to leave out altogether.

It’ll give you an idea of the calibre of songs coming up to enthral and delight you over the next twenty-three days that we are starting with Kate Bush and this very twinkly 1979 live performance of December Will Be Magic Again. If this doesn’t get you in the festive spirit, go away, drink a small sherry (or a sparkling cranberry juice with a slice of orange in it) and then come back and try again.

December 24: Beatles Christmas Supermash!

On By Laura MorganIn Music

I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking you don’t need to listen to any more Beatles Christmas music. But wait! Because I have saved the best for last in the shape of this incredible mashup by Tom Teeley, who has taken fragments of all the Christmas messages and mixed them with extracts from Beatles songs, in a way that sounds on paper like it shouldn’t work, but totally does, because he’s done it amazingly (thank you Paul for seeking this out and sending it to me).

For the dedicated Beatles fan, spotting where each sound is taken from is like a mini treasure hunt (and we get pretty esoteric – there’s an instrumental segment from You Know My Name, Look Up The Number which is a song I haven’t heard in actual years), and even for the regular listener it’s just brilliantly clever, AND comes with a video that I promise you will love. Happy Christmas Eve, and thank you for accompanying me along this odd and intermittently rewarding journey. I think Sweeney would have liked it (and you can listen to his own songs here, if you feel so inclined, and if you like them, or have enjoyed this year’s advent calendar, you can also donate to the hospice where he stayed).