Red Simpson (Truckin’ Trees for Christmas

Truckers love Christmas too.

Snoopy vs. The Red Baron (Snoopy’s Christmas)

I really wanted to include this in the playlist but I couldn’t find a copy of the track to burn on a CD.  Happily, Youtube has this version.  Smile!

Santa Claus Blues

Santa Claus Blues recorded by the Red Onion Jazz Babies in 1924.  That’s Louis Armstrong on cornet and Sidney Bechet on clarinet.

The 2008 Playlist

Maybe the cheapest trick in the playlist maker’s book is the rainbow playlist.  It’s a simple concept: find songs that have a connection to the various parts of the spectrum of visible light: red, orange, yellow, blue, indigo, and violet.  Maybe start with something in black and end by putting it all together in white.  It takes little creativity and often comes out pretty well.

Here are the ground rules for this year’s list: the color reference (with one exception, sort of) must be in the song title or the performer’s name, no red-nosed reindeer (too easy) and any Blue Christmas must be performed by somebody other than Elvis (again too easy).

Here’s the list:

Black Christmas                                          Emotions
Red Blue Yellow Green                                 Nina Mankin
Santa Claus Blues                                        Red Onion Jazz Babies
Truckin’ Trees For Christmas                      Red Simpson
Rangers’ Christmas Lullabye                       Red Dirt Rangers
Oranges for Christmas                                El Vez
White Christmas                                          Darlene Love
Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow! Yellow Snow!    Bob Rivers
Yellowman Rock (Jingle Bell Rock)               Yellowman
I’ll Be Home For Christmas                          Al Green
Green Christmas                                         Barenaked Ladies
Green Christmas                                         Stan Freberg
Winter Wonderland                                      Pat Green
Blue Christmas                                            Del Mccoury Band, The
Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)         Miles Davis Bob Dorough
Blue Christmas                                            Belton Richard
Blue Christmas                                            The Mediation Singers
River                                                            Indigo Girls
A Violet in the Snow                                    Bill Upper
Rebel Jesus                                                  The Violets
Candy Cane Children                                   White Stripes

Quick Notes: Indigo and Violet were tough.  Thank goodness Indigo Girls recorded one plausibly holiday song.  “A Violet in the Snow” may be the worst song I have ever put on a holiday playlist.  The Violets’ version of “Rebel Jesus” was a late find and I had already purchased the Bill Upper track so you get it too.  Oh, Darlene Love’s “White Christmas” is the rule-breaker.  Listen to the track carefully and see if you can figure out why it’s nect to the great El Vez’s (as close to the King as we will get on this list) Oranges for Christmas.

My Finetune Christmas Playlist

David Batstone – Human Trafficking as Modern-Day Slavery

Another video on human trafficking

About Human Trafficking

I saw this on POLS 51 BLOG. It’s pretty impressive that a 9th grader did this.

Merry Christmas From the Family Video

ROBERT EARL KEEN MERRY CHRISTMAS

What would Christmas be like without Robert Earl Keen? Sing along!

Christmas Dragnet–Stan Freberg and Daws Butler

A very funny parody of Jack Webb’s Dragnet from 1953.  Listen to Part 1 here. Remember, people call them green onions, but really they’re scallions.

The Christmas Shoes–New Song

Barb wanted The Christmas Shoes on the list. This assault on good taste has an interesting history as told on the CBS companion site for the movie based on the book based on the song based on the Internet-circulate urban legend.

THE STORY BEHIND THE MOVIE

 

In 1999, the Christmas Shoes story began circulating on the internet. The touching story about a little boy whose mother was dying at Christmas, and his quest to find the perfect pair of shoes for her to wear in heaven, came to the attention of Eddie Carswell of NewSong. Eddie began writing a song inspired by the story.

 

NewSong, a Christian musical group, sent its record “The Christmas Shoes” to a top DJ in St. Louis in November 2000. When he played it, the station literally shut down: the switchboard was inundated with calls and the computers crashed from the barrage of emails. With virtually no promotion, the record had 3500 spins around the country in just one week, and shot to #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary Charts in a record-setting three weeks.

 

The news media caught on to the phenomenon, and so did St. Martin’s Press. It commissioned Donna VanLiere to write a novel based on the song. The book was released in October 2001 with a 300,000 first printing. St. Martin’s released eight additional printings, but could not keep up with the demand. The book was entirely sold out two weeks before Christmas in 2001.

The song means a lot to many people and it wouldn’t be in keeping with Christmas spirit to be too mean to it, but puh-lease. This isn’t exactly O. Henry’s “Gift of the Magi,” is it?

I found a video that manages to keep things in perspective.