Seems like everyone’s in the mood for the holidays, including the SunBreak. So when I sent out a request for our staff’s picks for favorite holiday tunes, everyone lit up like the proverbial forest of Christmas trees. Enclosed, please find Part One of a Very SunBreak Holiday Music Mix, including videos and descriptions of our faves.
This list ain’t definitive by any measure, but there’s something for everyone here–from beloved classics to cry-in-your-beer holiday dirges to straight-up party tunes–and we’ve got plenty of fodder for next year’s Very SunBreak Yuletide Music Mix to boot. Happy Holidays!
Seth: You may not recognize the title, but the Vince Guaraldi Trio’s “Linus and Lucy” is the vamping piano riff that all the Peanuts characters dance to in lieu of practicing their Christmas pageant. The extended version is the perfect musical expression of the joy of gift-giving and eating a shit-ton of cookies.
Roger: The magnificent “Christmas (Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love is just one highlight off of the immortal Phil Spector Christmas Album, the best album the season ever produced (with all due respect to A Charlie Brown Christmas by Vince Guaraldi). No one ever found a better mix of production, singing and playing to match the holiday season’s unique mix of joy, sadness, hope and love.
Seth: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” by John Denver and Jim Henson (as Rowlf the Dog), is a gorgeous and heartbreaking duet by Denver and Henson, two brilliant artists who left us too soon. The song, about a fella who can’t make it home for the holidays but wants us all to have a great time, cuts even deeper since I’m sure, if there is a heaven, Denver and Henson are looking down and wishing the very same.
Clint: Pearl Jam has a couple of odd entries in the genre: “Let Me Sleep” is a sweet, quiet, bongo-punctuated ditty that recalls the season as a child: “How magic it seemed/Oh please let me sleep/it’s Christmastime.” Read what you want into that, given Vedder’s paternally-troubled youth. “Jingle Bells,” found on the band’s 2007 fan club holiday single, finds guitarist McCready in a holiday shredding mood, turning the tune’s refrain into a fun, fuzzy rock bouncer. No lyrics here, traditional or satirical–it’s all guitars over a simple drum spine.
Seth: “Christmas Wrapping,” The Waitresses: This early appropriation of rap (get it?) is an anthem of hope for single people on Christmas. Also, it has a sweet bass-line.
Tony: Hey, the Spice Girls do a cover of that song!
Chelsea: Weezer’s Green Album-era track “The Christmas Song”, will help put Seth’s cheer in perspective. The melancholy lyrics seem a little more Pinkerton era, as Rivers Cuomo won’t have you forget that he is waiting (and waiting) beside the tree. All by himself.
Seth: “Winter Wonderland,” by Ray Charles…For one thing, it’s Ray Charles, and for another, the producers didn’t drown his voice in a sea of hokey strings. It’s pure Charles, which means he could sing “Friday” and sound awesome. With “Winter Wonderland,” he makes magic.
Tony: The Carpenters’ Christmas Portrait synthesizes all of the sentiment, melancholy, and joy of the holidays better than darn near any seasonal album out there. And “Merry Christmas Darling”–with Karen’s creamy, bittersweet chocolate voice leavened by just enough of brother Richard’s lush production sprinkles–never fails to tug at me this time of year.
Seth: Back when Seattle was mostly Scandinavians and people who had to deal with Scandinavians, Stan Boreson’s Swedish-accented schtick was as popular as Macklemore is today. “O Lutefisk,” a paean to the smelly Scandinavian “food” sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree,” is his “My Oh My.” Though it does NOT feat. Ryan Lewis [nor does it feat. an accompanying video on YouTube or Vimeo–Ed.]
Chelsea: I see Seth has made the Stan Boreson mention, though I’m not familiar with “O Lutefisk” (the song that is – way too familiar with the fish itself). No, I was subjected to my parents’ Christmas jam Stan and Doug Yust Go Nuts at Christmas, which includes the Yogi Yorgesson (who grew up in the same part of Tacoma that I did, strangely enough!) cover “I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas” and the always popular “I Was Santa Claus at the Schoolhouse (For the PTA).”
Tony: “Christmas in Hollis” by Run DMC! It’s hip-hop royalty at the peak of their powers, devoting a lean-and-mean beat (and a sublime sample grab of Clarence Carter’s “Back Door Santa“) to lyrics that’re a thousand times funnier than that dipshit song about relatives getting run over by reindeer.
Clint: I would have nominated “Christmas in Hollis” if you hadn’t. Love that tune. I can’t listen without thinking of the ill-fated holiday party at Nakatomi Plaza in Die Hard.
Tony: You beat me to Pearl Jam’s “Jingle Bells,” so I guess we’re even.
[Come back for part two of our SunBreak Holiday Music Mix tomorrow.]