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Favorite Christmas Song


Seasick Sailor

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Silent Night is actually the best one, but can't believe we haven't seen this yet

 

not sure if this is even a Christmas song, but it's on the Sufjan Christmas album and has been in my head

 

also, this is a great song

ah, almost forgot O Holy Night - the bridge to that is one of the greatest moments in Christmas music.  What's the best version of that one?

Edited by Celery Man
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This song perfectly expresses the overwhelming ambivalence I feel about the holidays.  I revisit it every year.

"I get freaked out by churches.

Some of the hymns that they sing have nice chords (but the lyrics are dodgy).

And yes, I have all of the usual objections to the mis-education of children, who (in tax-exempt institutions) are taught to externalize blame, and to feel ashamed, and to judge things as plain right or wrong.

But I quite like the songs."

 

 

Edited by Paul Wesley
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On 12/24/2018 at 11:31 AM, Celery Man said:

, almost forgot O Holy Night - the bridge to that is one of the greatest moments in Christmas music.  What's the best version of that one?

David Phelps owns this song. Dude has the pipes and the passion for sure. 

 

Edited by After irth
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  • 1 year later...

As I mentioned above (two years ago I guess), O Holy Night is my favorite all-time.  So many great versions of it, this is a  rock version by a Christian band called "Kutless."  And normally I'm not a huge fan of Christian rock bands, but this version is pretty cool.

 

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O Holy Night is my absolute favorite.  With a truly powerful voice, it's just a chilling and aweing song.  I love Pavarotti singing it, but I think other versions are sometimes since he speaks English so much better.  NTTAWWT  

 

Ray Charles, The Spirit of Christmas.  Touches on the reason for the season, and all the reflections I have on Christmases past with my family, my 4 grandparents and other family that have passed on, and the Christmases to come with my own family.  Tears me up just listening to it. 

 

 

Not necessarily a Christmas song, but it's on his Christmas album with the space Christian choir.  Just unbelievably powerful the control he has with his voice.  Love Bocelli.  

 

 

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Pos rep on the Ray Charles "That Spirit of Christmas."  I try each year to get into those standard classics by lame-ass white dudes, but give me this tune every time.  It's awash in soul and joyous awe.  Love that photo montage you posted, where's that from (besides youtube)?  Reminds me of that tear-jerker moment in an otherwise comedic classic, "Christmas Vacation" when Clark is watching those old home movies in the attic to this same song. 

Between that little B&W reel he finds and that photo montage you posted, reminds me not of the Christmases we had growing up, but of the ones I heard about growing up.  These legends of this era that happened before my time that I could still smell and hear.  Men in ties smoking cheap cigars fumbling together kid's gifts on Christmas Eve without spilling a sip of their drink.  All turn in unison to the camera as if to say, "What the hell do you want?  We're doing Christmas shit over here."  Indiscernible plates of food in the background, women in ugly glasses and hair up managing dozens of kids and stacks of dishes without losing the ash off their Winston Light 100.  A record player blasts out the standards in the background, some parade with Dick Clark on the 21" TV cart just out of frame.  Third cousins and friends of uncles whom you don't know, but your mother swears are as close to her as any brother or sister ever could be.  Deviled eggs out on the dining room table since noon, a friend of a friend who you thought was away at "College" comes in with a large ham, your older sibling gets to go move cars in the driveway at age 13 because the snow plow is coming through the next morning and some folks will be "resting their eyes on the living room sofa" later that night.  Boisterous laughter at jokes you already know at your young age are woefully off-color but fucking hilarious.  New girlfriends/boyfriends of relatives coming around the family for their first Christmas with this look of terror in their eyes, and you just look at the and wonder, "Isn't this what everybody's family Christmas" is like?  Somebody offers up a prayer, somebody brings up old shit, somebody falls down, somebody knows a liquor store in Cicero that's still open,  somebody goes to their car to get a new holiday song cassette tape, somebody goes out for a cigarette on the patio and never comes back in, somebody hands me a $5 bill, somebody can't find their coat on the pile in my parent's bedroom, and somebody cries because it's their first Christmas without their mom who passed last Spring.

 I look at photographs on my dad going off on his first Naval assignment right before Christmas of 1961.  I see photographs of my dad meeting my mother's family during the holidays of 1974.  I look at the photos and a even a few short home videos of our extended family gatherings in the 70's & 80's.  And I realize, there is no War on Christmas.  We just forgot how to truly celebrate the thing.  

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"The Christmas Song" by Torme/Cole was rated the most-loved by women 25-49 in 2004.
So there's your answer.

(BTW, if you've never heard Cole's early non-orchestral 1946 (June, w/o strings, and August, with) versions, they're pretty damn awesome.  Breezier, more jazzy.
 

Edited by phdhorn
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19 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Didn't scroll and load every video but enough to know this was previously mentioned, and even if this version didn't have a hip pop-art vid, it'd be worth the replay, but it does...

 

I still don’t understand how Chuck, as celebrated as he was, is still so overlooked sometimes.   

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