{"id":21894,"date":"2019-12-18T10:47:29","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T15:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=21894"},"modified":"2019-12-18T10:58:45","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T15:58:45","slug":"a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2019-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2019-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"A <strike>Quirky<\/strike> Eclectic Christmas Mix (2019 Ed.)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mER2fGuSqF8\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;Santa Claus Is Watching You,&#8221; by Ray Stevens. (Lyrics <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azlyrics.com\/lyrics\/raystevens\/santaclausiswatchingyou.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\">here<\/a> and elsewhere.) Among its charms, the song has Santa&#8217;s sleigh towed not by eight, but by about <\/em>two dozen<em> reindeer, not all of them likely to be tiny. Rudolph isn&#8217;t among them, having been tasked with a surveillance project.]<\/em><\/p>\n<div style=\"float: right; width: 200px; padding: 1em; margin-left: 1em; font-size: 85%; border: 3px double brown;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 1em;\"><em>Want to visit the pages for earlier playlists, which include videos, other songs, and some background material not in the &#8220;official&#8221; current list? Here y&#8217;go:<\/em><\/p>\n<table style=\"margin: 0; padding: 0; font-size: 85%; line-height: 1.25em; border: 0;\">\n<tbody style=\"border: 0;\">\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-music-playlist\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2008<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-music-playlist-2009-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2009<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2010-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2010<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2011-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2011<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2012-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2012<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2013-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2013<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2014\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2014-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2014<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2015\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2015-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2015<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2016-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2016<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2017-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2017<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2018-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2018<\/a><\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<td style=\"text-align: center; border: 0; height: 20px; padding-top: 1px; padding-bottom: 1px;\">&nbsp;<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">W<\/span>elcome! Please dip your head when passing below the tacked-up greenery overhead here in the foyer &#8212; I&#8217;ve worked forever on that, and it just won&#8217;t stay in place&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>As always beginning in 2008, I&#8217;ve added ten new songs; the list therefore now includes 120 songs (well, the first just a scrap of dialogue). Total <em>time<\/em> required to listen to the whole thing, start-to-finish: now around six-and-a-half hours of music. This means that &#8212; unless you&#8217;re interested in only this year&#8217;s ten &#8212; the best way to play the whole thing is in random order, as background so to speak. Then you can just close <em>this<\/em> window.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px; padding-right: 40px; font-size: 85%; line-height: 1.25em;\"><em>Yes, I know, bloggers are not really known for their eagerness to see you out the door. Consider it a holiday treat from me (heh).<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>So, first, here&#8217;s the complete playlist, presented in random order<\/strong>. <em>Note: you can open it in a pop-out window by clicking (duh) the little &#8220;Popout&#8221; button at the top left (that&#8217;s the way to go, in my opinion) and if you don&#8217;t like <\/em>this<em> random order, just reload the page<\/em>:&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid brown; width: 75%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\n\n<\/div>\n<p>&#8230;or, if you&#8217;re in a hurry, <strong>here are the ten 2019 selections only<\/strong>. Unlike the complete list, this player just runs through the songs in sequential order:<\/p>\n<div style=\"border: 1px solid brown; width: 75%; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 20px;\">\n\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"highlight\">In either case, or even if you don&#8217;t want to listen at all, you might want to glance at <a class=\"lyrics\" title=\"RAMH Christmas Songlist\" onclick=\"javascript:wopenScroll('https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/popoutsonglist.html', 'new', 500, 600); return false;\">the complete current list of song titles and performers<\/a>. (Note: this is just a listing; you cannot play music from it.)<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re interested in why I recommend the random order, you can always check <a title=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2018-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the 2018 post<\/a>; it lays out my reasons in probably excruciating detail.<\/p>\n<p>Enough of the mechanics, already: on to some thoughts which this year&#8217;s list engendered&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n<p> <span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">T<\/span>his year&#8217;s cycle differs from the previous ones, primarily, in my mindset while prepping it &#8212; in restless things rustling in the back of my head, and a few other things clattering about in the foreground. Not to melodramatize, but all these might be summed up as: <em>I don&#8217;t know how much longer I can do this<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, I&#8217;m not going anywhere so to speak; no, it&#8217;s just that this year&#8230;  well, to put it mildly (and briefly), call me not merely preoccupied, but flat-out <em>exhausted<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From another perspective, though, I&#8217;m soon literally going <em>somewhere<\/em>: sailing into retirement in March, and headed overseas a couple months later. All of which should go a long way to making <em>next<\/em> year&#8217;s list <s>a lot<\/s> <s>a little<\/s> hypothetically easier to put together. Guess we&#8217;ll just have to wait to see what develops!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <span class=\"su-dropcap su-dropcap-style-light\" style=\"font-size:2em\">A<\/span>s for the specifics of this year&#8217;s playlist&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably my favorite addition is Celtic Thunder&#8217;s &#8220;Christmas 1915.&#8221; The song &#8212; its full title is &#8220;Silent Night (Christmas 1915)&#8221; &#8212; was written sometime around 1990 by Irish songwriter <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/cormacmacconnell_irishcentral.jpg?ssl=1\" style=\"width: 40%; float: right;\">Cormac MacConnell<\/img>, pictured at right; you can read his own thoughts about the composition <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishcentral.com\/opinion\/others\/silent-night-christmas-1915-my-song-is-a-gift-from-above-video-135241283-238114031\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishcentral.com\/opinion\/others\/magic-peaceful-song-christmas-trenches\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>, at the IrishCentral site. (MacConnell very much likes a rendition by <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.jerry-lynch.com\/about.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Jerry Lynch<\/a>, but I couldn&#8217;t find that version in digital form to include in the playlist.) And if you&#8217;re unfamiliar with the lyrics, you can find a version of them <a title=\"Lyrics: 'SONGTITLE'\" onclick=\"javascript:wopenScroll('http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/christmas1915_celticthunder.html', 'new', 500, 500); return false;\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The song may strike you as an odd addition to a playlist for a holiday often characterized as one of good cheer, glad tidings, so on and so forth. But something about it struck a chord in me here in 2019, with &#8220;things&#8221; what they are especially in the English-speaking world. We do seem to teeter on a fulcrum: which way will we tilt, finally? will it be life, then? or death, after all? Like many people, I&#8217;ve begun to lose confidence in the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And yet, as the cliche goes, <em>we&#8217;re not there yet<\/em>. So I myself choose for now to just set the playlist on random, and go about the everyday, near-term business of voting for <em>life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As always, thanks for visiting <em>Running After My Hat<\/em>. Here&#8217;s to another year, for now, of looking for &#8212; and in my experience still <em>finding<\/em>, more often than not, even now &#8212; the very best in one another!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;Santa Claus Is Watching You,&#8221; by Ray Stevens. (Lyrics here and elsewhere.) Among its charms, the song has Santa&#8217;s sleigh towed not by eight, but by about two dozen reindeer, not all of them likely to be tiny. Rudolph isn&#8217;t among them, having been tasked with a surveillance project.] Want to visit the pages [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22006,"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":"A playlist still going--- well, if not strong, then at least after a dozen years...","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3694,74],"tags":[27,845,846,2131],"class_list":{"0":"post-21894","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix","8":"category-music","9":"tag-christmas","10":"tag-christmas-music","11":"tag-playlists","12":"tag-eclectic-christmas-music","13":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/raystevens_santaclausewatching.jpg?fit=855%2C494&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5H8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894","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=21894"}],"version-history":[{"count":54,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23743,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21894\/revisions\/23743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}