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“Quote a song lyric that sums up your year”

You know that end-of-the-year quiz I do? This one question is taking up too much space.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

It would be easy to stick previous years’ songs on the list.

Logical Song by Supertramp

I said, Now, watch what you say, they’ll be calling you a radicalA liberal, oh, fanatical, criminalOh, won’t you sign up your name? We’d like to feel you’re acceptableRespectable, oh, presentable, a vegetable

Monster by Steppenwolf

America, where are you now
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters
Don’t you know we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster

Virtually all of Elephant Talk by King Crimson

And especially The Trouble With Normal by Bruce Coburn

The trouble with normal is that it always gets worse

Resistance?

Then I saw a HeatherCox Richardson video from August 7 titled Forms of Resistance and Reasons to Believe It’s Working. From about three minutes in, she said:

Those sorts of ways of recognizing quietly, of making a statement quietly, matter because people hear them and recognize that they are not alone.

Do you hear the people sing?Singing a song of angry men?It is the music of a peopleWho will not be slaves again

When the beating of your heartEchoes the beating of the drumsThere is a life about to startWhen tomorrow comes

Will you join in our crusade?

Who will be strong and stand with me?Beyond the barricadeIs there a world you long to see?Then join in the fightThat will give you the right to be free

That was set in France in the first third of the 19th century. Here’s a song set in France, slightly earlier. Marat-Sade as sung by Judy Collins:

Marat, we’re poor and the poor stay poor

Marat, don’t make us wait any more

We want our rights, and we don’t care how
We want a revolution
Now

That brought to mind another tune sung by Judy Collins, Democracy, written by Leonard Cohen. The penultimate verse:

It’s coming to America first
The cradle of the best and of the worst
It’s here they got the range
And the machinery for change
And it’s here they got the spiritual thirst
It’s here – the family’s broken
And it’s here the lonely say
That the heart has got to open
In a fundamental way
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A

Another song I thought of was (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thing by Heaven 17. As I recall, someone with the band or the label thought it was a bit overboard to say about Ronald Reagan. I’m not litigating that, but in a 2025 performance, the band said the song was more relevant now than then. And it has a great beat.

Have you heard it on the news about this fascist groove thang

Evil men with racist views spreading all across the land

Don’t just sit there on your ass, unlock that funky chain dance

Brothers, sisters, shoot your best. We don’t need this fascist groove thang

NYT

On July 1, Jon Pareles put together a list for the New York Times

Tracy Chapman, Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution
The Isley Brothers, Fight the Power, Pts. 1 and 2
Public Enemy, Fight the Power
Michael Franti & Spearhead, Yell Fire!
Bob Marley & the Wailers, Get Up, Stand Up
Mavis Staples, Eyes On The Prize
Patti Smith, People Have the Power
Björk, Declare Independence
Rage Against the Machine, Know Your Enemy
Antibalas, Uprising

I know I own the ones I linked to. That Isley Brothers couplet has been running through my head even before the list was published:

When I rolled with the punches

I got knocked on the groundWith all this bullsh#t going down

I can’t forget American Idiot by Green Day, which came out in 2004 in response to the knee-jerk reaction to the stupidity of that time.

Don’t wanna be an American idiotOne nation controlled by the mediaInformation age of hysteriaIt’s calling out to idiot America

Welcome to a new kind of tensionAll across the alienationWhere everything isn’t meant to be okayIn television dreams of tomorrowWe’re not the ones who’re meant to followFor that’s enough to argue

The chorus of Tubthumping by Chumbawamba runs through my head a LOT, over and over:

I get knocked down

But I get up againYou’re never gonna keep me down

But the winner

I just saw the 2025 video for the Dropkick Murphys’ Who Will Stand For Us? I’m not a “you must watch” guy, but please watch. Lyrics

Who’ll stand with us?Don’t tell us everything is fineWho’ll stand with us?Because this treatment is a crimeThe working people fuel the engineWhile you yank the chainWe fight the wars and build the buildingsFor someone else’s gain

So, tell me, who will stand with us?

And as time rolls on, not a single thing has changedAnd the wealth gap’s only grown as we all point to blameWe’re at the throats of one another, though we share a single fateAnd the golden few laugh on and on as we all take the bait

Seven Carols For Christmas

Alice Parker for Robert Shaw

Here are Seven Carols For Christmas, arranged by Alice Parker. My church choir, along with the Festival Celebration choir, performed these on December 14.

In 2006, Alice Parker wrote this description of the process:

“In 1970, Robert Shaw asked me to write some arrangements of Christmas carols for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choruses. We had not worked together since the last album for the Robert Shaw Chorale, the Irish Folk Songs in 1967, and his move to Atlanta.

“He was planning a series of Christmas concerts, and was not satisfied with the settings he could find: they were apt to be too elaborate, with overly simple choral parts. He asked that the chorus be allowed to shine in rather open orchestrations, and gave me freedom to choose whichever titles I wished in a mix of familiar and unfamiliar tunes. In Mr. Shaw’s acclaimed Christmas concert, the carols were scattered through the retelling of the story, in different patterns with the succeeding years.

“So they were not at the beginning intended to be a single concert piece, although I am frequently asked to share my preference for a sequence. One possibility, using all the numbers, is: O Come, Emmanuel; Away in a Manger; Fum, Fum, Fum!; Good Christian Men, Rejoice; So Blest a Sight; God Rest You Merry; Masters in This Hall. Another choice would be to split the above list into two parts, with the first three forming a little suite from varied sources, and the next four celebrating their British heritage. But you may order them as you wish, or use just one or two in a special program.

Rejoice!

“The enduring popularity of these arrangements has been a source of great satisfaction to me. It shows that these wonderful melodies, with their texts of love and hope, can unite different generations in the concert hall, as well as in the church and at home. Even in the cacophony of today’s musical world, their message shines clear and true. So now, good Christian folk, rejoice, and join your voices in tidings of comfort and joy! “

A live performance by The Michael O’Neal Singers, December 2016

The Pioneer Valley Symphony performance at Greenfield High School. Also, O Holy Night with Emily Jaworski. December 19, 2015

Huron Carol

fillyjonk linked to the Huron Carol. The singer “notes that the Nativity story has been ‘reset’ from the First Century Middle East to pre-colonial North America…. I am not bothered by it: the idea that Christ is for all times and all places can also sit along with the idea of ‘we know a little of the history, so we should try to be accurate.'”

Merry Christmas!

the Ballad of the Brown King

Langston Hughes

The cantata The Ballad of the Brown King (1954) is an important work, James Bennett II from New York Public Radio WQXR posits: “Margaret Bonds’ multi-part choral work, for which she collaborated with poet Langston Hughes, is an attempt to recapture the titular brownness that has art-historically been associated with one of the biggest holidays of one of the world’s biggest religions.

“Like the worlds in which the Nativity story exists, there is no singular style that dominates Bonds’s work; over the course of about 25 minutes, there’s the western orchestra’s pastoral serenity alongside gospel and black-and-bluesy American folk traditions.”

But it was not a straight line to success. From John Michael Cooper here: “Bonds and Hughes then shelved the cantata despite this impact, but as the Freedom movement gained headway in the early 1960s, they returned to it – revising it, adding two movements, and energetically promoting it in advance of the performance.

“The premiere of the reworked version took place, in a now-lost version employing piano-duet accompaniment, to a packed house in a concert produced by the Emergency Committee for the Southern Freedom Struggle on Sunday, 11 December 1960, at the Harlem YWCA at 50th St. and 8th Ave; the work was dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “

From Wikipedia: “A new orchestration of the piece by conductor Malcolm J. Merriweather was recorded in 2018 by the Dessoff Choirs and released on November 1, 2019. Margaret Bonds’s original orchestration is unpublished and has never been recorded.

Balthazar

“Ballad focuses on one of the Three Kings from the story of the birth of Jesus. Hughes chose the African king, Balthazar, as a way to ‘reinforce the image of African participation in the Nativity story.'”

Here is The Ballad of the Brown King:

The Dessoff Orchestra and The Dessoff Choirs

The Chapel Hill Chorus – ‘Wint’ry Light’ 12/15/24

UUCSR Choir and Soloists with The Orchestra at Shelter Rock, Manhasset, NY, with remarks

Soul Christmas songs

What Christmas Means To Me

Some soul Christmas songs, most NOT from the album pictured.

Louisiana Christmas Day – Aaron Neville, from Aaron Neville’s Soulful Christmas (1993)

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown (1968).

Little Drummer Boy – Lou Rawls (1967).

Silver Bells – Earl Grant (1969). This needs more airplay.

You’re All I Want For Christmas – Brook Benton (1963)

Mary’s Boy Child – Harry Belafonte, #12 in 1956. The remarkable Jester Hairston, who had a fascinating life as a composer and actor, wrote the song.

‘Zat You, Santa Claus? – Louis Armstrong, The Commanders

Every Valley Shall Be Exalted – Lizz Lee & Chris Willis & Mike E. from Handel’s Messiah: A Soulful Celebration (1992)

Little Drummer Boy (African Tribal Version) – Alex Boye’ ft. Genesis Choir

A Very Special Christmas

There were several of these collections to help the Special Olympics.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Whitney Houston (1987)

Christmas in Hollis – Run-D.M.C. (1987) The last time I took the Long Island Railroad, I noticed the Hollis, Queens stop.

Merry Christmas, Baby – Charles Brown, Bonnie Raitt. Bonnie had both Charles Brown and Ruth Brown on her subsequent tour. (1992)

Motown

Several Motown artists released Christmas albums: the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and the Temptations. They appeared on a couple of compilations, one of which I own on vinyl.

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer—The Temptations (1971).

What Christmas Means To Me – Stevie Wonder (1967). One of my top five favorite seasonal songs.

Stax

I think I favored the Stax Christmas music over Motown because it was less familiar. All of these I found on one of my STAX/Volt box sets.

Jingle Bells – Booker T. & The MGs (1967)

Winter Snow -Booker T. & The MGs. (c 1967) Isaac Hayes wrote this melancholy tune.

Who Took The Merry Out Of Christmas – The Staple Singers (1973). . Besides the vocals, it’s a bit melancholy, which is why I like it.

The Mistletoe and Me – Issac Hayes (1970)

Every Day Will Be Like A Holiday – William Bell (1967). It was a minor RB hit

How Christmas Songs Have Evolved

nostalgic, joyous, and even romantic

Over a decade ago, Alice Zhao wrote, How Christmas Songs Have Evolved Over Time. More recently, I saw a chart that said essentially the same thing: most popular Christmas songs were written before 1980, Mariah Carey notwithstanding.

Cole Haddon wrote in his 5AM StoryTalk: “I have zero mathematical evidence to support this, but I’d wager 99% of the Christmas songs we listen to every season were composed between 1800 and 1970. What happened to kill the Christmas song? Was it the death of the big band era and the songwriters who fueled it, and the musicals centered around its superstar performers? Was it the death of relentless optimism in the West that succeeded World War II? “

He wanted his readers to muse on the prompt: What makes a great Christmas song anymore?

These songs are from the last season or two:

Merry Christmas Darling – Rebecca Jade. I’ve seen her sing live a half dozen times!

Christmas In The City – Pentatonix

Merry Christmas – Ed Sheeran & Elton John, which I didn’t know about until Haddon referenced it. It “manages to be nostalgic, joyous, and even romantic as it subtly calls for us to come together and be grateful for surviving a global pandemic. I adore it.”

Winter Wonderland – Ellen, Charlotte, and Melisa. Ellen, the bass player, has a YouTube channel showcasing her skills, dating back to when she was nine.

The rest are earlier.

The Holly and the Ivy – Steeleye Span. I bought a Span box set during COVID.

Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby/David Bowie. Unless you’re of a certain age, you might not realize how bizarre this 1977 pairing was. And by the time the program aired, Bing had been deceased for over a month.

O Tannebaum – Nat King Cole. My mother’s favorite singer, singing in German!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Tony Bennett. Tony was one of the great comeback stories.

Sleigh Ride – Ella Fitzgerald. I have a CD with this song

O Come, O Come Emmanuel – Whitney Houston. Backed by a one-man group (Mervyn Warren from Take 6)

We Need A Little Christmas – Angela Landsbury, from the Broadway musical Mame.

Children, Go Where I Send Thee – Natalie Merchant

What Child Is This – Vanessa Williams

The Coventry Carol – Alison Moyet. The last three songs are from A Very Special Christmas, Vol. 3 (1997), Vol. 2 (1992), and Vol. 1 (1987), respectively.

Check out Kelly’s A Daily Dose of Christmas and Coverville 1561: A Very Coverville Christmas Volume 21

Also, Mark Evanier has seasonal content most every day this month, starting with My Simple Christmas Wish by Christine Pedi.

Holiday tradition

Playing Santa Does Strange Things to a Man. What It Did to Bob Rutan Was Even Stranger.

Damn it, Chevrolet, you’re not supposed to make me cry … again …

Sixty Years Ago, When Instruments Were Played in Space for the First Time, It Was ‘Jingle Bells’ All the Way. Astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra delighted mission control with their rendition of the Christmas classic.

The CPKC Holiday Train 2025 crossing at the Cohoes-Waterford Bridge

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