Category: Christmas

Advent carol for December 1: In Dulce Jubilo

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music, Uncategorized2 Comments

Not the jolly, jaggedy Mike Oldfield rendering but the haunting, unaccompanied vocal version which is the first track on my folks’ possibly-older-than-me vinyl copy of Carols From King’s, and therefore the first official song of Christmas. This is also the record we always used to decorate the tree to, so In Dulce Jubilo will always, for me, be the sound of Dad nearly, but not quite, falling off a ladder in his endeavours to string the lights all the way to the very top of the (ten-foot, trimmed enough to just fit into the front room) tree.

 

Step Into Christmas

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music1 Comment

Kings_College_Chapel

First of all, thank you for all the ideas you sent me for this year’s advent calendar. I’m not going to share any of them here because I am storing them up for the future – I think we’re good now at least into the next decade.

But for 2015 I have decided to go with an idea that I’ve been toying with ever since the start, but never felt able to commit to. In my plea for help I said I’d decided against doing “my favourite carols” but I didn’t say why. I think it was because it felt both too restricting and too broad, but then I lit upon the idea of choosing my favourite carols as sung by the choir of King’s College, Cambridge, and suddenly I felt enthusiastic about it, because Carols From King’s is a memory that predates any actual concrete hook to hang it on: it’s a thing, a sound, that has always been in my life.

I used to listen to the annual Christmas Eve service from King’s, which has been broadcast on Radio 4 every year since 1954, while getting ready for the party that my parents used to have every Christmas Eve, back when they were entirely game for hosting parties for three days in a row. I used to listen to it in our kitchen while helping to make mulled wine and mince pies (always handmade, with pastry stars instead of a closed lid and a shake of icing sugar on top to look like snow), and it is, I promise, the Christmassiest music of all. So this year we aren’t going to be kitsch or ironic or clever – though we will be all of that again in years to come. This year, we are just going to listen to twenty-four of the very best Carols From King’s.

I’m about 75% sure of what’s in and what’s out but if you have a favourite, let me know and I’ll see if I can squeeze it in. See you back here tomorrow!

Help! I need somebody

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music2 Comments

musical santa

It’s around this time of year (after Halloween and Guy Fawkes are out of the way) when I usually start to plan my musical advent calendar*. I list possible songs, and listen to them over and over and decide what will go where and, especially, what will go last, because while I can get away with having some filler at the beginning of the month, the last few songs, and the Christmas Eve song most of all, obviously have to be killers. I watch different versions of videos and listen to different recordings and all in all, put in a large amount of effort in order to do justice to the year’s theme.

And here, reader, is where I have come unstuck! I can’t think of a theme for advent 2015. These are the themes we have already had:

  • 2008: My favourite Christmas songs (I hadn’t decided, at that point, that this would be a Thing.)
  • 2009: More of my favourite Christmas songs (Clearly I had decided it would be a Thing, but I still wasn’t planning ahead.)
  • 2010: Christmas number ones (This was the year I realised I needed a theme.)
  • 2011: I asked my Facebook and Twitter friends to pick the songs, then wrote about the people, rather than the music.
  • 2012: Christmas songs from around the world (My secret favourite.)
  • 2013: Twenty-four different versions of White Christmas (My other secret favourite.)
  • 2014: Sad Christmas (Although that was quite awesome too.)

…and here are the themes I have considered and rejected for 2015 so far:

  • My favourite Christmas carols
  • A Country and Western Christmas
  • Crooners at Christmas
  • Twenty four Christmas songs by the same artist (There are only a few people this could be, and none of them is exciting enough to pull off a whole advent unaccompanied.)

The years I liked best were the years when I had to do some research, and ended up listening to songs I’d never heard before. So I would like another theme that I will have to work at a little bit. Please send me your suggestions, here, via Twitter or Facebook or email, or even in real life. Whoever provides me with a winner will get a special prize and my undying affection.

*I am aware that I haven’t written anything since the last advent calendar, but that will All Change in 2016, for sure!

Advent song for December 23, with love to Glasgow

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

For the second Christmas in a row, the best city in the world has been blindsided by an incomprehensible event. Love to Glasgow and everyone who loves it and its amazing people. The original lyrics to this song included the lines “Have yourself a merry little Christmas/It may be your last/Next year we may all be living in the past” but the slightly more hopeful version made it into Meet Me In St Louis, for which we can all be grateful. This is the last of the sad songs, but it’s super-sad and I give you permission to have a big old sob along to it. Tomorrow we cheer up again; until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow.

Advent song for December 21: Ringing The Bells For Jim

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

Today’s song is late, which is good because it may be the most tragic one yet, and I don’t want to ruin anyone’s Sunday. This song is the one I couldn’t post on Friday, because it was Faye’s birthday and she has a brother called Jim, and I didn’t want to be responsible for a drop in team productivity by sending her home in tears. Maybe listen to this one with nobody else around.

Advent song for December 19: Another Christmas

On By Laura MorganIn Christmas, Music

I had a different song scheduled for today, but it’s my colleague’s birthday and for reasons which will become apparent early next week if I tell you that her brother is called Jim, I decided I needed a last-minute replacement, which fortunately the same colleague provided by sending me a link to this, which I’ve never heard before and like a lot. So thank you Faye, and happy birthday to you.