Ratty Christmas Mix No. 1

I won't do a full-out Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs again this year, but here's a nice Christmas mix, more probably to come:

Spotify Mixtapes: Gay Your Life Must Be, Volumes I thru X.

Hello. I have a series of fifty Spotify Mixtapes called Gay Your Life Must Be. Now, these mixes MAY NOT BE FOR EVERYONE, although there is a wide variety of songs on them. Therefore, in conclusion, if you wish to listen to them, I will put them up ten at a time here now. They can also be found on my Spotify profile here. Some have been appearing for awhile at The Manna Tease tumblr. The Flying Guacanos art is by Liam Golden.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XXII thru XXIV.

I didn't quite get caught up for the last couple chocolates of our Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. See you next year! It's time to put away the Christmas songs until they start playing far too early in the calendar next year.

Here's three last good songs to fill in the gaps:

That's from Duke Ellington's very cool versions of tunes from the Nutcracker Suite, his Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed Pipes.) (The links are to Spotify.)
This guy Dan Hicks seems to have released dozens of Christmas jug band songs, & his voice is very comforting.  Here's his "Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit." (The version on Spotify from Hicks' album Crazy for Christmas is more mellow.)

And we'll finish this late advent calendar with the American folk song "Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over," sung here on the soundtrack to Cold Mountain by Jack White of the White Stripes. (Great album, by the way!) Till next year...

More spotify playlists & mixtapes to come! One last time, here's the link to our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)
And these days, we blog more at the simpler Manna Tease tumblr blog, where I've also been posted mixtapes & Manna Tease videos.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XXI. De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy

Hello again - only a few days left of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. This song, a traditional from Trinidad called "De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" or "Glorious Kingdon," from an old Kings Singers' Christmas album, has a hilarious rhythm track. This is the only video of it:


You can hear the rhythm better in the studio version, on Spotify here. And here's our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XX. Christmas in New Orleans & also Harlem

Quickly catching up with the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. Louis Armstrong takes us to both New Orleans and Harlem for Christmas:



I think "Christmas Night in Harlem" is catchier, but they're both awesome. (Is "lit up like a Christmas tree" a subtly subversive innuendo?) Here's Christmas Night in Harlem on Spotify, and here's Christmas in New Orleans. Here's the Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs Playlist (Listen on random!)

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: If that playlist is too wide-ranging & chaotic (& contains more than a few annoying songs) I have created a much more digestible christmas playlist centered on some albums of doo wop & blues songs: Christmas Blues, Doo Wop, & Big Band Epic Playlist (listen on random.)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVII. Christmases in Heaven

If you ask Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, "What is the meaning of life?" she gives a couple of different answers, including "42" & "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." I think there was an article on Slate about this, where the author was touched by this practical advice from artificial intelligence. The writer was pointed out in the comments by people who recognized it as a quote from the anti-climactic postscript to the last Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life.
The scene immediately before this advice, the "Afterlife" section of the movie, contains the following strange Christmas song, imagining every day to be Christmas in heaven, complete with classic movies on television:


I had never heard this longer version that's on Spotify, which has a long coda about "Fishmas in Heaven." This verse is not in the movie: "It's Fishmas in Heaven / You are home with God. / And lot's of dace & carp & bream / And halibut and cod."

But if you need more Christmas in Heaven, there's also a soulful take on this concept, with versions by James Brown & B.B. King! Here's Billy Ward & His Dominoes:

And here's our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVI. Bethlehem & Sherburne

Speaking of sheep, Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" is one of the most frequently set texts for carols. (I've always loved the juxtaposition of the mundane "all seated on the ground" with the glory shining all around, but I suppose that's the point.) The common setting in my caroling book is by Handel, and I think there's another old common British church hymn called "Winchester Old." The version I know best is Sherburne from the Sacred Harp, & it's also one of my favorite tunes in that book. This is the great Alan Lomax "field" recording:

Here's that recording on spotify. I found several other decent versions of that on spotify, here, here, & here. I really like this medley by the Western Wind called Three Settings of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks." The excerpt of Sherburne is in this video:

The other setting in the Sacred Harp, Shining Star 461, doesn't appear to be on Spotify. (Will Fitzgerald has a nice round-up of Christmas tunes from the Sacred Harp here.)
However, William Billings, the great Sacred Harp composer, did set the words also, and the tune Bethlehem is published in the Norumbega Harmony. Here's Anonymous 4 singing it on spotify, & here's the Norumbega Harmony - two pretty tame versions, but still pretty. Here's a the Western Wind again:

I've also set the Tate text several times, here. & here's our incomplete Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XIV. Hot Christmas

This year's Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs wouldn't be complete without a selection from The Squirrel Nut Zippers masterpiece & overlooked holiday album Christmas Caravan.
"Hot Christmas" is more of an instrumental, if you consider the only lyrics are "Hot Christmas / Hot Christmas / Hot Christmas." But what does it mean!?

Here's Hot Christmas on Spotify. And here's our epic Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Carols (Listen on Random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: VIII. Christmas Wrapping & Christmas Rappin'

Hello, this is the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. Today, a double feature. I heard Stephen Metcalf on the Slate Culture Gabfest recommend this Christmas song Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses, a nice 1980s girly rap with satisfying brass arrangements.  Look, someone synchronized it to their Christmas decorations:

Here's the link on Spotify.
And when I was trying to find that song, I typed in "Christmas Rappin'," thinking it was spelled that way. Of course, tho, there is a Christmas Rappin' by Kurtis Blow from 1979! "Now I'm the guy named Kurtis Blow / And Christmas is one thing I know. / So every year just about this time / I celebrate it with a rhyme." Poetry!

Here's that song on Spotify. And here's our epic several-day-long Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Playlist (listen on random!)

In related news, HuffPost has a post called "15 Most Annoying Christmas Songs." There are some truly bad songs there I'd never heard of, like Simple Plan's "Christmas List," which has the lyrics "Santa is coming tonight / And I want a car & I want a life."

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: VII. Bluegrass White Snow

This song reminds me of Dolly Parton's great "The Grass Is Blue" as far as obvious twists on the genre name blue grass. "Bluegrass White Snow" from Patty Loveless' 2008 album Bluegrass & White Snow: A Mountain Christmas, is a bit bland, but the bluegrass harmonies are really beautiful, & doesn't that sound like Dolly singing back-up on the recording? Here's a live video:

Here's the song on spotify, & here's our Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Playlist (listen on random!) 

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs:V.

As everyone knows, "White Christmas" was written as a toss-off novelty vaudeville song by the Jewish Irving Berlin, and became the best-selling song in the history of music (according to Guinness, approx. 50 million copies). Fittingly oppositely, this heartfelt single by The Emotions called "Black Christmas" didn't even make the charts. But it's still soulful:

Here's the link on Spotify. & here's our Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Playlist (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: III. Gower Wassail

There's a couple good versions of the Welsh carol, the Gower Wassail, on spotify. I was glad that Wikipedia had this handy helpful chart for the choruses:

That's right, haters, the default font in my browsers is Comic Sans. Eat it.

Here's my favorite version of Gower Wassail, by John Langstaff and the Christmas Revels. It's satisfyingly krummhorny.

Here's a version by Kerfuffle from their excellent "Midwinter" album Lighten the Dark, more on that later.

And, this one by Steeleye Span is also pretty good & has some crunchy harmonies, & someone put it on youtube:

Now master and mistress let your company forbear
To fill up our wassail with you cider and beer
We want none of your pale beer, nor none of your small
But a drop of your kilderkin, that's next to the wall 

More lyrics from Wikipedia.

Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Playlist (listen on random.)

Apologies: & Re-Spearheading a Re-Initiative of an All-New Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs

Hello, & welcome back to itwaslost.org. & Apologies for the five week radio silence, so much has happened. Actually, nothing has happened, but there is also a Manna Tease tumblr blog - themannatease.tumblr.com - which exists. 

Furthermore, Mr Jason Islas is spearheading an initiative called Advent Bloggifying. This reminds me that in the year of our lord Twenty-Ten, I advent blogged all 24 days leading up to Christmas with a Special Department called the Special Department of Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. So I hearby [sic] now re-spearhead a new re-initiative of an all-new 2011 Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs.

This is an issue very important to me, & of which I spend 11 months of the year not thinking at all about, & the remaining month thinking of nothing else. My love-hate relationship with Christmas music borders on manic-depression. It is often manic, but it is proceeded by the mid-November chill of death upon hearing the first Carol of the Bells in some Nissan TV advertisement. I realize this relationship to Christmas music isn't unique, but perhaps mine is personally intense. (I propose a six week boycott of any company that uses any Christmas song in an ad before Thanksgiving.) 

So to save the ubiquitous Christmas songs from themselves, I have a project of collecting the best & worst of non-overplayed Christmas songs. My personal collection is already many hours long, but this year is the year of Spotify. If you do not have Spotify right now, you are a fool, because it could be a short-lived Golden Age if record labels are going to pull all of the music from it. My spotified playlist of non-Overplayed Christmas songs, ranging from the worst to the best, is now at least 30 hours long & is still being expanded, pruned, & improved. (Please listen to it on random.)

For the Advent, I'll post a song a day until Christmas. Day 1 of my Advent Calendar I am going to go with a new recording, from Carole King's 2011 album A Holiday Carole (get it?) This album isn't amazing, in fact it's lame, but for a washed-up '70s pop star - "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman" - it's better than one of Kenny Rogers' 47 Christmas albums. It contains a bunch of sucky new songs written by her daughter Louise Goffin - but by my calculation, the album is only 25% overplayed Christmas songs, so that's commendable. I think this song "Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday" is strangely satisfying, especially on repeated listening. It's a cover of a song by soul singer William Bell, but I like her singing & production better. Now, come back here every day for a NEW Non-Overplayed Christmas Song. & listen to the spotify mix if you wish.