A Quirky Eclectic Christmas Mix (2012 ed.)

[Image: “Christmas on the Moon” (1970), recorded — perhaps even written — by four-year-old Troy Hess]

Welcome to this year’s installment of what’s become an annual series here.

Once again, I’ve added ten songs to the bottom of the previous years’ entries. As before, these artists and numbers appear, back-to-back, in the following playlist:

— 2008: —

1. Peter Robbins et al.: dialogue from A Charlie Brown Christmas
2. Anonymous 4: Hodie Christus Natus Est
3. Waverly Consort: Three Spanish Villancicos – Dadme Albcrecias
4. Perry Como: Home for the Holidays
5. Mannheim Steamroller: Joy to the World
6. George Winston: The Holly and the Ivy
7. Celtic Woman: O Holy Night
8. John Denver and the Muppets: The Twelve Days of Christmas
9. Al Hirt: Nutty Jingle Bells
10. The Roches: Deck the Halls
    — 2009: —
11. Charlotte Church: Mary’s Boy Child
12. Madeleine Peyroux/k.d. lang: River
13. George Winston: Variations on the Kanon
14. Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops: The Toy Trumpet
15. Eartha Kitt: Santa Baby
16. Mannheim Steamroller: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
17. Celtic Woman: The Wexford Carol
18. The Brian Setzer Orchestra: Jingle Bells
19. Jimmy Boyd: I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
20. Cumberland Gap Reunion: Silent Night
    — 2010: —
21. Sam Phillips: Cold Dark Night (lyrics)
22. Elvis Presley: Blue Christmas
23. Loreena McKennitt: God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (may be my favorite addition to this year’s list…)
24. The Chipmunks: The Chipmunk Song
25. Frank Sinatra: Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
26. London Philharmonic Orchestra: It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
27. Tony Elman: Winter Creek
28. Sara Groves: Toy Packaging (lyrics) (…and this may be my favorite for grins)
29. Harry Belafonte: Mary’s Boy Child
30. Ray Conniff Singers: Ring Christmas Bells
    — 2011: —
31. Ralph Marterie and His Band: Dig That Crazy Santa  Claus
32. Nat King Cole: The Christmas Song
33. The Indigo Girls: It Really Is (A Wonderful Life) (lyrics)
34. Johnny Mercer and the Pied Pipers: Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town
35. Dean Martin: Baby It’s Cold Outside (also see the wonderful American Songwriter writeup on the story of this song’s composition [thanks, Jules!])
36. Ferrante and Teicher: Sleigh Ride
37. Bo Dollis & Wild Magnolias: Shakana Santa Shake It
38. Neil Diamond: Silver Bells
39. Taverner Consort, Choir, & Players (Andrew Parrott, conductor): Branle de l’Officiel (Ding! Dong! Merrily on High)
40. George Winston: Carol of the Bells
    — 2012: —
41. Michael Tilson-Thomas & Philharmonia Orchestra: The Nutcracker (Overture)
42. Vince Guaraldi Trio: O Tannenbaum
43. Troy Hess: Christmas on the Moon (And don’t worry, it’s not just you: no one else seems to understand the lyrics (other than the refrain), either.* America’s Singing Souvenir Troy Hess was four years old when he recorded this in 1970. )
44. Barbra Streisand: I Wonder as I Wander
45. Frank Sinatra: Jingle Bells
46. Al Hirt: Ave Maria
47. Art Neville: Christmas Gumbo
48. Ella Fitzgerald: Frosty the Snowman
49. Dean Martin: I’ll Be Home for Christmas
50. Choir of King’s College, Cambridge: Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht

(Note: The playlist goes automatically from start to finish, once you click the little Play button. To fast-forward to the next number, once a song is playing you’ll find a little fast-forward button to the right of its progress meter. And a fast-rewind to the left, for that matter.)

Last year, I added the option of listening to just the current ten-song list, without having to fast-forward to it through earlier lists. And while I was at it, I gave RAMH regulars the chance to use their secret right-bracket decoder rings, to listen to the playlist later without even visiting here. (As I said then, I know — this isn’t exactly the sort of thinking to encourage return visits…) That seemed to work out pretty well, so here we go with this year’s selections only:

[2012 only]

For me, one of the charms of Christmas music is the way it calls to performers: across musical genres, across cultural and ethnic lines, across language barriers. It seems that almost every performer of popular music — at least in the US — simply cannot get all the way through their careers without recording at least one Christmas song, video, EP, and/or album. The quality is mixed, naturally, just like the quality of performers in general. Interestingly, these little side projects sometimes become the work the performer is most known for. (Hello, Chip Davis and Mannheim Steamroller! Hello, The Blenders!) If they do several such recordings, chances are that one or more of tunes are original. And finally, there’s the category of not-quite-original and not-quite-cover versions…

Singers/Songwriters/All-round performers Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward have adopted the stage name She & Him for their particular brand of easygoing indie pop; their 2011 album, A Very She & Him Christmas, was one of the most-downloaded holiday offerings that year. One song in particular held a certain amount of advance buzz: for the 2003 film Elf, Deschanel’s character had sung a little bit of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” while taking a shower — as the title character (played by Will Ferrell) sits on a bathroom counter, transfixed. She & Him included the full number on their Christmas album last year; this year, they added an animated video for it.

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* Well, to be fair, someone almost certainly knows what the lyrics are: a Detroit band called The Go (whose lineup sometimes included Jack White) actually covered “Christmas on the Moon” in 2007. Only one — one — YouTube video features this recording.