Year-round Yuletide oddities
Perhaps not everyone knows about this stranger it’s okay to talk to and take candy from. But December is full of exceptions to the rule.
Gluon Love tutors the tots with their how-to “Santa’s Lap,” an introduction with happy garage fun. Heartwarming!
Jacobsen Brothers dramatize the intro of a wee one to the huge hirsute one with disastrous results. Pop techno glee is “Santa? Who’s That?“
Even the impoverished want the reassuring ambience of Christmas lights.
Maxwell, Miranda Parsely get 1940s retro with their pop playfulness “Christmas Lights.” They’re spending their last dime on those li’l bulbettes. And they’re so nearly happy!
Abandoned Rugs also make a play out of their misspent pennies on “Christmas Lights.” But their hijinks are the stuff of sitcoms! Ha!
It’s not a contest, but Hanukkah started using lights first to celebrate late December. Maybe not the most songs about it, though.
Eli Goldstein rocks the pop with “Night of Light.” It’s heavy, regardless of the rap solo, because you know ritual, reverence, history.
More Jewish rap? “Light Your Lights” by T-Chai (feat. Rihanniwitz) relies on a backdrop of Oy-vey-ee-yay-ee-yay. More for the youth group than the elders.
The ’05 cast of ‘Wicked’ gets into the candlecraft with “The Chanukah Song (We are Lights).” A traditional celebration orchestrated for the whole stage. Wotta production.
Hasidic breakdown from 8th Day in their boy band jumper “Miracle of Light.” Huh?
Ari Goldberg leans into the bouncy pop of “Hanukkah Light.” It’s uplifting, which just seems weird for that holiday.
We’ve embraced several light sources into our ragtag theme of Christmas Light Songs. So, why not the home’s hearth? It’s where the stockings are hung and Santa appears. And–the Yule log (which should be so dambig that you burn only part of it each of the twelve nights of Xmas)!
Dave & Jeannine rascal the country fiddlin’ for a bad recording “Put Out the Ol’ Yule Log.” Seems forgetting to darken the fireplace will cause some down home regret. Or some two-steppin’.
Black Oak Coven’s album The Homebrewed Book of Pagan Carols offers a “The Yule Log” song about blessed light in the home. It ain’t Christian, but it is holy. Medieval throat boxing.
That, natch, brings us to Prof. Peter Schickele’s “Throw the Yule log on Uncle John.” This parody of Dark Aged chorale ronds is great fun for all teen-aged ironists, including Emerald City Voices.
Also outre, Hot Buttered Elves get psychedelic garage with “Larry was a Yule Log,” in which the holiday centerpiece is anthropomorphized with horrifyingly danceable results.
Let’s retire with a sprightly folk pop piece about the fireplace in the work-a-day world. Sure I could include some random anonymous spoken word piece from the 1960s (hi-fi test album??) about how-to make a Christmas fire…
…but let’s cut instead to Joshua Hyslop’s “Winter’s Night.” The ambience is vibrant, and i’m pretty sure all is well in this world–thanks to the smoldering hearth.
Symbols become icons. Then come the iconoclasts. What bad can they say about the Xmas star??
Soledad Brothers get naughty with “Hang My Star” way up high on your tree. You’re gonna need a drycleaner for that.
Merrill Leffmann’s Xmas burlesque routine includes “The Star that Came,” which sounds carol-esque. But this lounge tune is about flirting and connecting.
“Star of Blight” is the anti-Christmas satanic observation from Kruxy. ‘We Three Kings’ plays in the background. Ew.
Overindulging results in “North Star (Bloody Christmas)” which Elliphant blues-pops about something not so traditional. Regrets hangovers.
When Michael J Handley recounts how you had to be the “Star on the Tree” his ragtime pop rakes you over the too-drunk-to-remember coals. How embarrassing.
Get the Christmas star out of the sky, capture it! Bring it into the house. Put it on top of the tree (Christ symbol) so we can find that big honkin’ thing.
Michael Warner’s “A Star on Top of the Christmas Tree” is a middle-of-the-road near-country strangulation of love and hope and all that’s bourgeoisie.
RuPaul fizzies the pop with “You’re the Star (On My Christmas Tree).” It’s a love fest of identities for the geometric design.
Deconstructed Brazilian jazz wanders around Aja Wintermantel’s singing range for “Star on the Christmas Tree.” The laundry list of Jesus, angels, and Nativity takes second place to her missing you, you star you.
The Russian-French tradition, according to Feddy, is to pop sing “The Red Star on Top of the Christmas Tree” (altho, with his accent, i think it’s Kreemuss trail). Some party anthem so let’s go.
Now for another entry in the dictionary. Who else is the star at Christmastime?!
Not much higher praise than you are “My Christmas Star.” Cheesy corrido (with flaming Spanish guitar) sets up Claire Knox’s song about her dead dog Holly. You heard me.
Nu Revelation (feat. T. Conway) funks us a reminder that the King of Kings gets top billing tonight. “Christmas Superstar” lays down a righteous beat.
“Santa Claus *Superstar*” follows the generous downfall of our icon to the rock arena. Daniel Chorr appropriately rocks this ballad. Fear not, little ones. Lessons will be learned.
Similarly Dr. BLT recounts how “Santa Claus Wants to be a Rock Star.” Same story, now with American South sauce.
I try to avoid lyrics i can’t translate, but Gabriela Guncikova, Marta Jandova showstopping the rock with “Santa Superstar” needs notice. Woo hoo!
Who’s the star? Jesus is the star! Yes, he is! Oh, yes he is! What a good God!
Mary Thienes Schunemann intones “He is the Star” matter-of-factly. So, we’ll leave it at that.
Steve Courtney once again does not disappoint with “Jesus is the Star.” Carrib beats take us into the POV of the star/savior/omnipresence. Ya, mon.
Find that savior, find that savior, find that savior! You’ll get a new way of spending Sundays, a hashtag, a paid holiday on 12/25… just follow that star!
Children’ll do it. “We’ll Follow That Star” is attributed to Songs for Children. They sing great, too. A sprightly kidsong march.
Look up! calypsoes The Starshine Singers, so you can espy “The Brightest Star in the Sky.” Might as well follow it, as–well–that’s a thing, innit? Then they clean up their act and sing “Following the Star.” It’s like part two.
“Rise Up Shepherd and Follow” is pretty much the whole hymn (add in a Star of Bethlehem ref), here simplified in tutorial form by Charles Elmer Szabo. Thanks.
Odd alt from MusicBodySpirit, which cautions us to follow “The Christmas Star 2020.” Perhaps this is irony.
It’s a love thing! Ashley Lagunas goes alt-pop with a romantic ballad about how “Following the Star” will get her nearer to You. Aww.
That billboard for God’s birthing might be the brightest thing in the zenith. It might do more than simply shine.
Wendy Moses twists up the kidsong with a soupçon of calyspo in “It was a Starry Night.” And it was BRIGHT.
Burning so bright, came Jesica Bennett’s “One Special Star.” Brace yourself for this aria, it’s pithy.
Sheila Walsh updates us on the child, son, savior, you know. But this pop-gospel emphasizes how brightly it was foretold in “Star Song (There is Born a Child.”
It might pierce, or blaze according to Resound Worship in their pop Xian song “See the Star.” Can’t miss the star, more likely.