Tag: music

A Beatles Christmas again

War is Over, if you want it

I thought I would do  A Beatles Christmas again, as I did in 2016. This year is Ringo Starr’s 85th birthday, and would have been John Lennon’s as well. It’s also the 45th anniversary of John’s death this month.

As some may know, the group “sent out spoken and musical messages on flexi disc to members of their official fan clubs in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US) each Christmas between 1963 and 1969. An LP compilation of all seven was sent out in 1970, entitled From Then to You in the UK and The Beatles Christmas Album in the US.” I have said US LP; of course, I do. 

From here: “The Fan Club Christmas Messages is more about the wit and humor the Beatles shared than actual musical quality. This is more about the ‘funny four’ than the ‘fab four.’ In the middle years (‘65-‘67), these Christmas Messages might be compared to ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number).'” 

Unsurprisingly, some of the links from nine years ago don’t work. Moreover, there are no available replacements for some songs, but several YouTube tracks are mislabelled. Some are Beatles outtakes, but a chunk are misrepresented as being by the Beatles when they are purported soundalikes. 

The songs

Beatles Christmas Records from 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1969.

Christmas Time Is Here Again is a song from the Free As A Bird single (1995), copped from the 1967 Christmas record that I can’t find. Here’s an extended snippet.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over) – John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Harlem Community Choir (1971). This made me cry every time I heard it in 1980.

Ding Dong – George Harrison (1974). More of a New Year’s tune.

Wonderful Christmastime – Paul McCartney and Wings (1979). Quite the hated tune.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reggae – Paul McCartney and Wings (1979). Though the B-side, the song is from 1975

I Wanna Be Santa Claus  – Ringo Starr (1999)

The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) – Paul McCartney with Diana Krall (2012)

Wonderful Christmastime – Straight No Chaser feat. Paul McCartney (2013)

So what else do we have?

All I Want For Christmas Is A Beatle  – Dora Bryan with an accompaniment directed by Johnny Gregory (1963)

Jingle Bells – Fab Four

Top Country Christmas Hits

Eddy Arnold

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top Country Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the country charts.

If We Make It Through December–  Merle Haggard, from 1973, four weeks at #1 CW, #28 pop

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer – Gene Autry with the Pinafores from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #1 pop for one week. It eventually sold eight million copies, second only to Bing Crosby’s White Christmas.  A new version of the song got to #70 pop in 1957.

Blue Christmas – Ernest Tubb from 1949, one week at #1 CW, #21 pop in 1950. “The song was originally recorded by American country singer, musician, and actor Doye O’Dell in 1948. It was popularized the following year in three separate recordings: one by Tubb, one by musical conductor and arranger Hugo Winterhalter and his orchestra and chorus, and one by bandleader Russ Morgan and his orchestra. Elvis Presley cemented the status of the song as a rock-and-roll holiday classic by recording it for his 1957 LP Elvis’ Christmas Album.

Snow Flake – Jim Reeves from 1966, three weeks at #2 CW, #66 pop

Jason Ritter’s grandfather

Christmas Carols By The Old Corral – Tex Ritter from 1945, one week at #2 CW. Maurice Woodeward Ritter was the star of c. 85 Hollywood westerns from 1935 to 1945. The late John Ritter was his son.

Thank God for Kids – Oak Ridge Boys from 1982, two weeks at #3 CW

Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane) -Gene Autry from 1948, one week at number 4 CW. It reached #8 pop in 1948 and #24 pop in 1949

Frosty the Snowman – Gene Autry with the Cass County Boys and Carl Cotner’s Orchestra, from 1950, one week at number 4 CW. #7 pop in 1951, #23 pop in 1952

Will Santy Come to Shantytown – Eddy Arnold from 1949, one week at #5 CW

C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S – Eddy Arnold from 1949, three weeks at #7 CW, co-written by Arnold

Top R&B Christmas Hits

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

From Joel Whitburn’s Christmas in the Charts, 1920 to 2004, Top R&B Christmas Hits lists the peak positions these seasonal songs reached on the Billboard rhythm and blues charts.

White Christmas – Bing Crosby  with the Ken Darby Singers, orchestra conducted by John Scott Trotter (Berlin) from 1942, #1 for three weeks RB, #1 for 11 weeks pop, from the film Holiday Inn. It was the “1947 Bing remake that piled up the majority of the title’s sales from its subsequent reissue throughout the decades on nearly all 78s, 45s, LPs, cassettes, and CDs.”

White Christmas – The Drifters from 1954, #2 for one week RB. Not only is this one of my favorite carols, it’s a wonderful video cartoon by Joshua Held. Featuring Bill Pinkney on lead bass and Clyde McPhatter on tenor.

Let’s Make Christmas, Baby – Amos Milburn from 1949, #3 for four  weeks RB. Is it just me, or is this song blue, and I don’t mean sad?

The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You) – Nat King Cole from 1946, #3 for three weeks RB, #3 pop. Every year, Mark Evanier shares a story about this song some know as “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…'”and Mel Tormé, who co-wrote the song

Merry Christmas, Baby – Johnny Moore’s Three Blazers with Charles Brown from 1947, #3 for two weeks RB. Co-writer Moore also is the guitarist; Brown does piano and vocals.

This is rhythm and blues?

The Chipmunk Song – The Chipmunks with David Seville (Ross Bagdasarian) from 1958, #5 for one week RB. #1 for weeks pop in 1958, then #41 pop in 1959, #45 pop in 1960, #39 pop in 1961 and #40 pop in 1962. My house had a copy of this single when I was growing up; the label was greenish.   

(It’s Gonna Be A ) Lonely Christmas -The Orioles from 1949, #5 for one week RB

Faraway Blues (Xmas Blues) – Johnny Otis Orchestra with Little Esther and Mel Walker from 1950, #6 for two weeks RB. I wrote about Otis here back in 2008.

Silent Night (Christmas Hymn) – Sister Rosetta Tharpe with the Rosetta Gospel Singers from 1949, #6 for one week RB. She was posthumously  inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 as an early influence. “Sister Rosetta was the first guitar heroine of rock & roll. Her heartfelt gospel folksiness gave way to her roaring mastery of her trusty Gibson Les Paul Custom, which she wielded on a level that rivaled the best of her male contemporaries.”

Lonesome Christmas (Part 1 and 2) – Lowell Folson from 1950, #7 for one week RB

Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.

40 million people worldwide were living with HIV in 2024

HIV AIDSOn the HIV.gov page is What Is Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S.? (EHE) “The initiative aims to substantially reduce HIV infections in the U.S. by focusing resources in the 57 jurisdictions where they’re needed most. It does that by scaling up four science-based strategies: diagnose, treat, prevent, and respond…. The bold plan… aims to end the HIV epidemic in the United States by 2030.”

Here are some statistics. “Approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. have HIV. About 13 percent of them don’t know it and need testing…

“According to the latest estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately 31,800 people acquired HIV in the United States in 2022. Annual infections in the U.S. have been reduced by more than two-thirds since the height of the epidemic in the mid-1980s. Further, CDC estimates of annual HIV infections in the United States show hopeful signs of progress in recent years.

“The decline [in new infections] was driven by a 30% decrease among young people aged 13-24 years. Increases in pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prescriptions, viral suppression, and HIV testing likely contributed to the decline.”

Worldwide 

In 2024, a “report from UNAIDS showed that the world is at a critical moment that will determine whether world leaders meet their commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The report, The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads, brings together new data and case studies which demonstrate that the decisions and policy choices taken by world leaders this year will decide the fate of millions of lives and whether the world’s deadliest pandemic is overcome.” 

Worldwide, approximately 40 million people were living with HIV in 2024. Over a million people became newly infected with HIV that year, and over half a million people died from AIDS-related illnesses.

Since the start of the epidemic, more than 75 million people have become infected with HIV, and more than 40 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, including my high school friend Vito.

Not “over”

I point this out periodically because occasionally, I run into comments suggesting that HIV/AIDS is “over.” It certainly isn’t the death sentence that it was when first defined in the 1980s.  New HIV infections have been reduced by 61% since the peak in 1996, while AIDS-related deaths have decreased by 70% since the peak in 2004.

In July, my old buddy Amy Barlow Liberatore, a/k/a Sharp Little Pencil, posted a song she wrote years ago for World AIDS Day, in memory of her dear friend Jeff French. It’s called “The Day I Saw an Angel Fly.” 

I’m reminded that this is the 35th anniversary of the album Red Hot + Blue: A Tribute To Cole Porter, which “raised nearly $1m for the activist group ACT UP. It was the first of a series of compilations designed to fight the scourge of HIV/AIDS. You can hear the album here; I was and am very fond of it. 

Songs that mention other songs

Rick Astley?

  • In popular music, there are approximately 10 zillion songs that mention other songs in popular music. One of my favorites is Sly and the Family Stone’s Thank You, which references several Sly songs: 
  • Dance to the musicAll night longEvery day peopleSing A Simple Song
  • The Beatles appear frequently in this list. Glass Onion mentions several songs by the group. All You Need Is Love lifts a snippet of She Loves You; similarly, the Rutles’ Love Life echoes Hold My Hand. John Lennon famously mentions Sgt Pepper and Yesterday in his How Do You Sleep? Harry Nilsson’s You Can’t Do That references several Beatles songs.
  • Perhaps my favorite linkage is the one that starts with Neil Young’s Southern Man, which is name-checked in Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Sweet Home Alabama, which in turn is quoted in Play It All Night Long by Warren Zevon.
  • That Rockpile guy
  • However, one that I somehow managed to miss is Nick Lowe’s All Men Are Liars. I have the album Party Of One, on which it appears. But until Lowe’s birthday at the end of March, I managed to miss this particular reference:

Do you remember Rick Astley?He had a big fat hit that was ghastlyHe said I’m never gonna give you up or let you downWell, I’m here to tell ya that dick’s a clownThough he was just a boy when he made that vowI’d bet it all that he knows by now

Some other songs:

Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream”  (Del Shannon’s Runaway)

The Kinks’ Destroyer  (The Kinks’ Lola  and All Day and All of the Night

The Stills-Young Band’s Long May You Run (The Beach Boys’ Caroline, No)

Arthur Conley’s Sweet Soul Music (a bunch of soul classics by Otis Redding, Jackie Wilson & the Miracles)

What are your favorite songs that namecheck other songs?

Ramblin' with Roger
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