{"id":16249,"date":"2014-12-24T06:48:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=16249"},"modified":"2014-12-24T06:48:44","modified_gmt":"2014-12-24T11:48:44","slug":"midweek-music-break-jingle-bells-by-barbra-streisand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/midweek-music-break-jingle-bells-by-barbra-streisand\/","title":{"rendered":"Midweek Music Break: “Jingle Bells?,” by Barbra Streisand"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Barbra<\/a><\/p>\n

For some reason, this rendition of the classic song — from La Streisand’s 1967 Christmas album — has ended up on a number of “worst [or least favorite] Christmas songs” lists (e.g.<\/a>). Maybe just because it’s a family favorite, though, I’ve never minded it at all. True, it’s not a song I’d want to hear over and over; few songs are. But a few times? No problem.<\/p>\n

If you’re not familiar with it, the question mark in the title is mandatory. While it’s the same old song, melodically and lyrically, it actually resembles<\/em> the same old song only in the way that, oh… in the way that Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman’s Rain Man<\/em> role) resembles an endearing old vicar tallying up the weekly church offerings. For this reason, unlike probably 90% of the covers I’ve encountered, it doesn’t have James Lord Pierpont<\/a> or “Traditional” alone credited as its author. To his name are added two new ones, those of producer Jack Gold and arranger Marty Paich.<\/p>\n

Pierpont’s probably not exactly rolling over in his grave, although he may be scratching his head.<\/p>\n

For what it’s worth, I’ve belatedly added Streisand’s recording to this year’s Quirky<\/del> Eclectic Christmas Mix<\/a>, at position #68 overall (#8 for the year). This actually seems to have been a mistake: a couple days ago, I “realized” that I’d repeated one song from an earlier year — and inserted “Jingle Bells?” as its replacement. As it turns out, the mistake was not in this year’s Christmas mix, but in my burning of the earlier year’s CD, for offline listening. Ha!<\/em><\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Jingle Bells?. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 1:52 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n[audio:68_jinglebells_barbrastreisand.mp3|titles=’Jingle Bells?’|artists=Barbra Streisand]\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For some reason, this rendition of the classic song — from La Streisand’s 1967 Christmas album — has ended up on a number of “worst [or least favorite] Christmas songs” lists (e.g.). Maybe just because it’s a family favorite, though, I’ve never minded it at all. True, it’s not a song I’d want to hear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[38,2252,74],"tags":[845],"class_list":{"0":"post-16249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-backwards","7":"category-midweek-music-break","8":"category-music","9":"tag-christmas-music","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-4e5","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16250,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16249\/revisions\/16250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}