logo

Year-round Yuletide oddities

  • Home
  • Handy Dandy Archival Index
  • List of Every Song by Artist (GASP)
  • Novelty Christmas Music, The Blog
  • Manifesto

Category Archives: lounge

Christmas Countdown: 1965

The Seething Coast gets antic with a rap-like folk diatribe “Tinker’s Blues” which brings out some thinking, including Sometimes I think of Christmas time in 1965. This may be a Viet Nam riff, but also a groovy ditty.

“The Beatles’ Third Christmas Record” careens through Israel, all-white policy, success, Vietnam, copyright infringement, and the weather. A candid snapshot of the time.

WyGuy raps out the loss of spirituality for the holiday in “Mean Spirited” by alluding to several movies/specials, including the Charlie Brown one Way back three years after the Christmas of 1962. Do the math, i guess.

Allan Sherman (remember him?) tells it like it makes you itch with newsfed laughter in “Have Yourself a Sixties Merry Christmas.” But he means 1965. He says so. Schlocky lounge comedy, but that was king back then. (Aka ‘Draft Cards Burning on an Open Fire.’)

Christmas Countdown: 1984

The Kinetics romp and stomp the pop with “Christmas 1984,” a time of superficial glee. Bodacious.

Low Fidelity Love Songs is more introspective with “Christmas (1984).” Just wants to feel like he’s alive, guys. Alt-garage.

The Fragments get bitter with “Merry Christmas 1984.” Indie as she goes. Stop crying in the gutter!

Well, this is no silly old year. This is a literary allusion you should all recognize. Meet the Seavers go highball low lounge jazzy with “Christmas 1984,” pointing out the lengths and depths surveillance Santa will go to. Watch out! Be good!

ad silentnitum, keepontrucking

We’re stuck! Xmas songs about forever christmas!

“Another Holiday” has got the harsh vocals, loud brass, and slick pop noodling of the ’80s. Why not, it was The Other Ones’ hit from ’87. Forceful.

A handful of scorn, but on the other hand a delightful pop croon: “Another Drunken Santa Claus Christmas” calls out the worst of us to the best of them. Amusingly quiet. Sleeping Dogs Lie nail it.

Allusion alert! Stupendium includes all the cool scary villains from —i’m i don’t know, ask a Millennial–in “Another Horror Holiday.” This campy lounge showstopper might be your next cultural party quiz. Name that baddie!

A Near Thing -8

Are you clued-in to check the beat? These swingin’ verses are straight from the ‘fridge, daddy-o. And they also pertain to the neighborhood of Christmastide.

If you try too hard, swingin’ cool gets loud and loungey and–gasp–showtune-like. Hence David Tobin’s “Almost Time for Christmas Day.” He’s one Hep C cat.

Marrying gospel and John Prine, John Field is his own man with “Nearly Christmas.” A bit loud, but my head’s a-noddin’.

Billie and The Haint plug in garage nonchalance with “Almost Christmas.” It’s a beatnik banger, a hippie howler, a millennial meltdown.

Actual big band swing is still a genre of historical note, so let’s apply ourselves to the sweet girl gang The Morning Report in their “Christmas is Just Around the Corner.” Wartime was warm times way back then.

A jugband ragtime lassez-faire meandering, “It’s Almost Christmas” ups the ante of local in-the-know dead on time. Hats off (then back on, ‘cuz its Chicago winter!)!

A Near Thing -9

The music I can ONLY swallow ironically is lounge swing pop. Surely it is never intended to be taken on face value….

Well Paul Rolnick is batting for the cheap seats with the ploncky “It’ll be Christmas Before You Know It.” IS he rolling his eyes? Naw, he’s icky earnest. Ew. (Billy Stritch might be pulling our leg with his silky version.)

Leaning into the curves (wait for it…) Joe Escobar sets up and eases into “Christmas Time’s Around the Corner” with such panache he didn’t even spill his martini. Smooth (except for that unnecessary brass.)

Piano jazz bar and a nod to Frank make Tom Deger & DarkHorse a nose ahead with their “It’s Almost Christmas Time.” Playful country electric and a drugged-out swirling helps.

“Jingle (Bells)” …keep dancing (older now)

Add the word JINGLE to your number and Xmas hits the spot. Bells may be implied.

Andy Beck and Brian Fisher bring you another kids’ assembly pageant with “Jingle Bells Jukebox.” Jumping and shaking to follow.

“Jingle Down the Christmas Tree” is PJ Parker’s sultry euphemism for the best gift ever–the oldest form of dance there is.

Michael Hurtt & His Haunted Hearts cowboy up the slide guitar with “Jingle Bells Boogie,” a quite danceable honky tonk wonder. Asleep at the Wheel don’t quite bring it to their tired version.

Almost a word-for-word rendition, Wayne Newton manages to demolish the family joy of this traditional song with his smarmy lounge version “Jingle Bell Hustle.” Only one word has been added to the original. Can you spot it? Should you?

ël-No, the twenty-second

The intrinsic suppliers of the poverty paradigm involve shit-out-of-luck parameters that seem out of our control. No Christmas for you and your loved ones, ‘cuz–just ‘cuz.

Scott Anderson honky tonks the blue grass with his spiral into bad luck “Ain’t No Christmas Round Here.” It’s the usual country-western lament, but that banjo just keeps me from cryin’.

Yulenog blows smoky jazz lounge for the gambling addict who leaves it all on the table and “No Christmas” follows his sorry ass home. Pretty messy.

Baby It’s Coal: okay

On opposite day the kids want coal for Christmas. How goofy can we make this trope?

Pete McPherson is feeling the chill, so he wants country swinging “Coal for Christmas.” To hedge his bets he slurs ol’ Santa’s name, and also readies the shotgun to get what he wants. Damn, that IS cold.

Yulenog gets environmentally conscience-less when lounge swinging how much they want “Coal for Christmas.” (They’ll take oil, for that matter.)

Yee Hawliday: missing home

When you’re not home on the range, you probably have a home to get to. So out there, you’d miss it more’n a trucker come Christmas day.

Praying for a way back, The Brymers add soul to country for their “Cowboy Christmas Day.” Sad one.

Mary Kaye brings out the pathos with an old hand who knows when it’s time for “Goin’ Home for Christmas.” Friends, i’m not sure she means above ground… (sniffle).

Hey wait, is that lounge music for a “Cowboy Christmas“??? Starlet Knight dives deep into diva to tell a tale of not being home in time. —little girl.

Yee Haw-liday: corn pone

Everyone’s jumping on the cowboy Christmas song bandwagon and talent is no prerequisite.

Donna and Carroll Roberson strangle out “A Cowboy Christmas” stringing together cold, God, and cattle with little emotion, just pop plodding.

With ladles more orchestration, Wayne Newton lounges up “Cowboy’s Christmas” for the casino-goers. The attempt to psychoanalyze the loner goes awry with the coconuts clacking as horse hooves missing the beat of the electric bass.

Next Posts

Pages

  • Handy Dandy Archival Index
  • List of Every Song by Artist (GASP)
  • Novelty Christmas Music, The Blog
  • Manifesto

Archives

  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015

Categories

  • 50 States (57)
  • BLUE MATERIAL (228)
  • Caroldies (parodies of carols) (149)
  • CHRISTMAS DAY! (6)
  • comedy (37)
  • instrumental (2)
  • Love (30)
  • Music Genres (2,235)
    • a cappella (19)
    • altrock (145)
    • big band (41)
    • bluegrass (35)
    • blues (83)
    • boogie woogie (17)
    • cajun (5)
    • Cheesey Pop Rock (14)
    • Childrens (154)
    • classical (1)
    • country (89)
    • country sort of (152)
    • disco (20)
    • doo wop (21)
    • eezee lisseneen (69)
    • electronic (50)
    • folk (242)
    • garage (65)
    • Gospel/hymnal (55)
    • jazz (85)
    • lounge (26)
    • metal (31)
    • new age (6)
    • polka (32)
    • pop music (394)
    • psychedelia (39)
    • punk (63)
    • R&B (45)
    • rap (115)
    • reggae (12)
    • rock (257)
    • rockabilly (48)
    • show tune (113)
    • Soul (32)
    • surfin' (8)
    • swing (27)
    • world music (84)
  • other holiday (76)
  • paro"deus" (pop tunes into Xmas) (170)
  • science fiction (25)
  • spoken (16)
  • Uncategorized (12)

WordPress

  • Log in
  • WordPress

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)
  • Handy Dandy Archival Index
  • List of Every Song by Artist (GASP)
  • Novelty Christmas Music, The Blog
  • Manifesto