{"id":23742,"date":"2020-12-17T09:44:56","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=23742"},"modified":"2020-12-17T09:45:01","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T14:45:01","slug":"a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2020-ed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2020-ed\/","title":{"rendered":"A <strike>Quirky<\/strike> Eclectic Christmas Mix (2020 Ed.)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\" style=\"width: 100%; margin-bottom: 1em;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/VlMvSNpu_rU\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\" style=\"display: none;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ry7PcYtKPhA\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen=\"\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;Sleigh Ride,&#8221; from the ten-year-old YouTube series called &#8220;Post-Modern Jukebox<\/em><em>.&#8221; (Tip o&#8217;the hat to the <a title=\"Froogville\" href=\"http:\/\/froogville.blogspot.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">erstwhile blogger<\/a> and longtime <\/em>RAMH<em> friend known as Froog for reminding me of the collection.) PMJ&#8217;s videos feature a rotating stable (!) of contemporary performers rendering classics or contemporary pop music in retro musical styles, often in a form of musical irony &#8212; hence the &#8220;post-modern&#8221; of the title, I guess. As in many (most? all?) of the videos, PMJ&#8217;s creator, Scott Bradlee, features here on the keyboard. Unlike &#8212; as far as I know &#8212; any of the others, this one places at the centerpiece not a vocalist or instrumentalist, but a <\/em>dancer<em>. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;d ever considered tapdancing as a type of percussion instrument but, y&#8217;know, maybe&#8230;?]<\/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;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2019\/12\/a-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix-2019-ed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2019<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Greetings, and welcome to the latest of <em>Running After My Hat<\/em>&#8216;s annual Christmas fests, such as they are. Of course, since this <em>is<\/em> 2020, it&#8217;s only natural that this would be the thirteenth such iteration &#8212; but let&#8217;s dwell no further, for now, on the prospect of things going wrong. To the music, then!<\/p>\n<p>As always beginning in 2008, I&#8217;ve added to the heap ten songs previously not included; the playlist therefore now includes 130 songs (the first is just a scrap of dialogue). Total <em>time<\/em> required to listen to the whole thing, start-to-finish, is now up to around seven 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> browser window, and go about your holiday business.<\/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 2020 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('http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/popoutsonglist.html', 'new', 650, 600); return false;\">the complete current list of song titles and performers<\/a>. (Note: the window that opens when you click that link is just a listing; you cannot play music from it.)<\/p>\n<p>Want to know why I recommend the random order? 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 reasoning in probably excruciating detail.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s it for the music <em>per se<\/em>. Below, some further ruminations&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">Declaring 2020 the Year of Interesting Experiences is like proclaiming the wetness of water. Does anyone in the audience seriously dispute that this year has &#8212; to put it mildly &#8212; come unmoored from familiarity? and done so more or less unpleasantly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At least &#8212; <em>least<\/em> &#8212; selecting my annual ten-song Christmas playlist slate has felt less frenetic this year. <em><span style=\"color: silver;\">(Whispering: <\/span><\/em><span style=\"color: silver;\">retirement<\/span><em><span style=\"color: silver;\">, y&#8217;know.)<\/span><\/em> Yes, less frenetic &#8212; but better? as good, even? That remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aside from just the amount of time on my hands, the relative &#8220;simplicity&#8221; of this year&#8217;s selection process comes from a personal project I&#8217;ve long wanted to pursue: a database, for my own use, of <em>RAMH<\/em> music. For the time being, this just includes the performances (i.e., songs as recorded by specific performers) already on past Christmas playlists here. It&#8217;s a small enough sample to be manageable, while still giving me an idea of aggregate statistics&#8230; and thus helping make this year&#8217;s choices easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of those preliminary findings:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Across the 12 prior playlists, one artist has had more entries than any other: Mannheim Steamroller, with eight appearances &#8212; including a song in each of the past five years. So, I figured, while I&#8217;m probably not done with the Steamroller, it&#8217;s safe to eliminate them from consideration for this year.<\/li><li>Most popular <em>song<\/em>: &#8220;Silent Night&#8221; (also known by some other slight variations in the title), on five annual lists&#8230; including last year. Again, easy enough to give it a rest in 2020.<\/li><li>A favorite &#8220;this time of year&#8221; song for me is Joni Mitchell&#8217;s &#8220;River.&#8221; It&#8217;s not quite a downer of a song, but the emphasis is definitely on something like <em>regret<\/em> and\/or <em>poignancy<\/em>&#8230; which wouldn&#8217;t feel at all out of place in 2020. So I checked the database and found exactly ONE appearance, waaaay back in 2009 &#8212; and it wasn&#8217;t even Mitchell&#8217;s own performance. <em>(*gasp*)<\/em> So, including <em>that<\/em> &#8220;River&#8221; was an easy decision here.<\/li><li>Other (to me) weird gaps appeared. For instance, &#8220;Jingle Bells&#8221; has shown up four times (including idiosyncratic versions by Al Hirt and Barbra Streisand)&#8230; but not since 2012. So maybe, I thought, I should give that some consideration? (Ultimately: nope, shut out again!)<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>As I looked through the complete stack of music available for this year, I did remember that &#8220;Kidnap the Sandy Claws&#8221; (from the <em>Nightmare Before Christmas<\/em> soundtrack) had almost made the cut several times in the past. But it kept getting bumped at the last minute; one might almost think I&#8217;d known 2020 was coming. I mean, let&#8217;s face it &#8212; <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/genius.com\/Walt-disney-records-kidnap-the-sandy-claws-lyrics\" target=\"_blank\">the lyrics<\/a> really are cleverly viciously cynical, right? Almost&#8230; <em>spiky<\/em>. So here it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 30px; margin-right: 30px; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.25em;\"><em>The segment of the film including the song, though, <\/em>did<em> get replaced atop this year&#8217;s post, thanks to the Post-Modern Jukebox gem featured above. I&#8217;ll include the &#8220;Kidnap&#8230;&#8221; clip in a comment below.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, about the last song this year&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-drop-cap\">The closing-out spot on every year&#8217;s ten additions is always a selfish choice &#8212; the one whose spirit I want to take with me into the next year, for one reason or another. (Notably, &#8220;Silent Night&#8221; has held position <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/tag\/10\/\">#10<\/a> more than any other.) I really had no idea what to use this year. But as I groped around in my options, I came across an album which despite its title &#8212; <em>A Revels Christmas in Wales<\/em> &#8212; does not consist entirely of Christmas music. &#8220;Sing We Now,&#8221; on this year&#8217;s list, is not only NOT the same as &#8220;Sing We Now of Christmas&#8221;; it also IS one of those not-exactly-Christmas numbers. But by virtue of its tune, it definitely qualifies as <em>Welsh<\/em>: the melody is that of &#8220;Hyfrydol&#8221; (Welsh; translation: &#8220;cheerful&#8221;).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(You can find a recording of &#8220;Hyfrydol&#8221; itself in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/02\/midweek-music-break-pendyrus-male-choir-cwm-rhonnda\/#comment-42059\" target=\"_blank\">a comment<\/a> I posted back in 2012. As for &#8220;Sing We Now of Christmas, see <a rel=\"tag\" class=\"hashtag u-tag u-category\" href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/tag\/3\/\">#3<\/a> in this year&#8217;s playlist: &#8220;No\u00ebl Nouvelet!&#8221; &#8212; the original French title &#8212; performed by Loreena McKennitt.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Sing We Now,&#8221; say the album&#8217;s liner notes, &#8220;is given new words by Susan Cooper to celebrate the return of light and warmth after a long winter.&#8221; I&#8217;d never heard of Ms. Cooper; it turns out that she is British-born and -raised, but now lives in the US, and is known primarily as an award-winning and bestselling author of children&#8217;s books. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p style=\"margin-left: 30px; margin-right: 30px; font-size: 90%; line-height: 1.25em; font-style: italic;\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thelostland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Here&#8217;s her Web site<\/a>, and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patriotledger.com\/article\/20151208\/ENTERTAINMENT\/151206796\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s an interesting article<\/a> about her in a local Massachusetts newspaper, from 2015. Needless to say, finding <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Susan_Cooper\" target=\"_blank\">a Wikipedia entry about her<\/a> required almost no energy at all. As for the Revels organization behind the album and other seasonal celebrations, Christmas and otherwise, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.revels.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">their own site<\/a>. (This year their annual Christmas Revels &#8212; the 50th! &#8212; is of course going virtual.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The lyrics to &#8220;Sing We Now&#8221;:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote><ol><li style=\"margin-bottom: .5em;\">Hooded now with icy darkness, all the earth lies deep in snow,<br>Light and life are held in bondage as the winds of winter blow;<br>Yet endure this dark dominion, with no moment of despair,<br>And a thread of song shall whisper through the cold, unconquered air.<br><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: .5em;\">One bird sings to break the silence, softly calling, sweet and high;<br>\nBringing hope that day will follow, all across the wintry sky.<br>\nGlimmering on the fair horizon comes the promise of the dawn,<br>\nSoon to warm the frosty mountains, as the daylight is reborn.<br><\/li>\n<li style=\"margin-bottom: .5em;\">Sing we now to greet the morning, radiant in the bright sunrise;<br>\nSing to turn the year to springtime as the rule of winter dies.<br>\nMay our world so turn tomorrow, driving fear and want away,<br>\nFacing toward the sun forever, joyful in the long bright day.<\/li><\/ol><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes: that is <em>definitely<\/em> a song whose spirit I want to ride into 2021. I hope you&#8217;ll find it so, too &#8212; and experience the next year to match!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;Sleigh Ride,&#8221; from the ten-year-old YouTube series called &#8220;Post-Modern Jukebox.&#8221; (Tip o&#8217;the hat to the erstwhile blogger and longtime RAMH friend known as Froog for reminding me of the collection.) PMJ&#8217;s videos feature a rotating stable (!) of contemporary performers rendering classics or contemporary pop music in retro musical styles, often in a form [&hellip;]<\/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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3694,74],"tags":[27,845,846,2131,5264,5838,5839],"class_list":{"0":"post-23742","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-quirky-eclectic-christmas-mix","7":"category-music","8":"tag-christmas","9":"tag-christmas-music","10":"tag-playlists","11":"tag-eclectic-christmas-music","12":"tag-post-modern-jukebox","13":"tag-5838","14":"tag-5839","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-6aW","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742","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=23742"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25068,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23742\/revisions\/25068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}