July 9, 2011

1972- "X-Mas Flexi Message"

.....You would think that a musician routinely described as 'elfin' by critics would have more Christmas music in their catalog. During the 1960's Marc Feld had a hard enough time selling his own singles to worry about the holiday market. After failing as a Donovan knock-off, mod clothes horse and avant-pop provocateur (that last one with John's Children), Marc decided to indulge his love of Tolkien and formed a duo with a percussionist who went so far as to rename himself Peregrine Took. Marc himself continued to use the stage name he'd used professionally since 1965, Marc Bolan. [Some detective work by Mark Paytress found that the pseudonym was taken from actor James Bolam of the British TV series "The Likely Lads", about blue collar youth with middle class aspirations. That sounds appropriately mod.] The two found cult stardom as Tyrannosaurus Rex and actually poked into the lower end of the UK singles charts. Maybe all those creative writing professors who mechanically chant, "Write what you know" were onto something all along. After three albums he dropped his junkie bongo-playing partner for a bongo-playing heartthrob, went from acoustic to electric and made himself as available as possible for radio sessions, but it made no difference commercially. Someone, probably producer Tony Visconti, suggested they shorten the name. Most radio DJ's and music critics in England at the time were not like John Peel, an unlikely early fan of the band. They dealt with the avalanche of new music every week by relying on their preconceptions about the band, not by listening to the record. And since they were pretty dim generally they wouldn't make the connection between the old band and the new name until it was too late and the public had heard the records. From that point on they became 'T. Rex', switched from one EMI subsidiary label to another EMI subsidiary label, got haircuts and Marc covered himself with glitter confetti for a TV appearance. For the next two years (10/70-12/72) their singles reached: #2, #1, #1, #2, #1, #1, #2, #2. Every day was Christmas for Marc Bolan. So, at the end of that enviable run he sent out a fan club flexi single.

.....The earliest Christmas recording from T. Rex I could find was actually an impromptu Bolan solo recorded as a bumper for the Bob Harris Show on BBC Radio in December 1971. It's the last track on 3CD BOLAN AT THE BEEB Polydor 530292 3 (EU [really Germany]) 2007. It goes under the name "CHRISTMAS JINGLE" and is only 17 seconds long. In its entirety:
  • "Christmas is a good time
  • Christmas is a good time
  • On the Radio-o-o
  • If you listen to this show"
.....A year later the last T. Rex commercial single of 1972 was released. Anyone getting that first pressing found an unannounced spoken message right before the B-side:
  • 7" T. Rex Wax Co. MARC3 (UK) December 1, 1972
  • A) 02:20 SOLID GOLD EASY ACTION (Marc Bolan)
  • B) [0:12 X-MAS RIFF]
  • ---02:04 BORN TO BOOGIE (Marc Bolan)
  • The message reads: "This is Marc Bolan here. I'd like to wish you all a super-funk Christmas and a golden New Year. Yeah!"
  • this track can be found on CD TANX Polygram Chronicles 314 534 356-2 (US) 1997, but is listed as "X-MAS MESSAGE"
  • It surfaced again on 2CD THE T. REX WAX CO. SINGLES A's & B's 1972-77 Edsel Records MEDCD 714 (EU[UK]) 2002 as "X-MAS RIFF"
.....That spoken message was probably recorded at the same time as the fan club flexi single, in November 1972 in Tony Visconti's home studio. The flexi starts with about 44 seconds of conversation followed by an original song. The conversation breaks down like this:
  • (0:24) Marc Bolan "Hello babes, this is Marc Bolan, um, and I'd like to thank you all for a really fine year. We've had a really good time, been everywhere, and, um, 'spect you've had a good time yourselves, um, I hope you have a good Christmas, really good and we're gonna be on "Top Of The Pops" on the weekend over Christmas and we're in London and everywhere so at some point we're going to see you and be close to you so, and also have a good year and don't cry."
  • (0:10) Steve Currie "Hello, this is Steve Currie here. Thank you very very much for all you've made us. We really couldn't do without you and I hope to see you all again soon."
  • (0:07) Mickey Finn [or possibly Tony Visconti reading his part?] "This is Mickey Finn here and I'm wis-- [Marc interjects, "Never!"] and I'm wishing you a merry, merry, merry Christmas."
  • (0:03) Bill Legend [actually woman's voice, obviously reading from a script] "This is Bill. Have I got a Christmas surprise for you, oh boy!"
.....The remaining 1:28 of the flexi is an untitled song. The whole band is playing, except that Visconti is playing Legend's part. The lyrics, such as they are, are here:
  • All I want to do
  • Is spend some time with you
  • 'Cause I want to spend
  • My Christmas with you
  • All I want to say
  • Is everything OK?
  • 'Cause I want to spend
  • My Christmas with you
  • [Chorus] Want to spend my Christmas with you [repeat once]
  • Everything I do
  • Makes me feel like a zoo
  • 'Cause I want to spend
  • My Christmas with you
  • [Chorus] Want to spend my Christmas with you [repeat three more times]
.....Flexis are usually giveaways, perfect for mailings or magazine premiums because while their sound quality is inferior to hard vinyl they travel much better. They're lighter and flexible (hence the name) and won't break in shipping. This track appears as "X-MAS FLEXI MESSAGE" on at least two box sets:
  • 3CD A WIZARD, A TRUE STAR Edsel Records FBOOK17 (UK) 1996
  • 4CD 20TH CENTURY SUPERSTAR Universal 493-452-2 (UK) 2002
  • 3CD INTERSTELLAR SOUL Edsel Records EDSB4001 (UK) 2007 (really just a repackage of the 1996 box)
.....It also appears on a few rarer sources with tomorrow's entry.

July 8, 2011

1951- "Amahl And The Night Visitors"

.....Yesterday most NPR stations noted the 100th birthday of composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who made history when he wrote the first opera commissioned for television. Although born in Italy Menotti had lived in the U.S. since his teens and, hoping to bring opera to as wide an audience as possible, wrote it in English. The story, "AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS", is about a boy unable to walk without crutches and in the habit of telling tall tales. His family's home happens to be on the route followed by the three kings seeking the birth of Christ and when they ask for temporary rest there, no one will believe Amahl when he says there are kings at his door.

.....Menotti is no longer with us, but ten years ago, on the fiftieth anniversary of the opera's live broadcast debut, NPR managed to secure an interview with him. At ninety years old he was not only aware and animated, but had clear memories of the production. As of this writing the interview was still available through the archives at npr.org, and this link should bring readers to the page with the audio link:


.....And the next link should bring readers to the page with yesterday's article on Menotti, including both audio and video links:


.....My normal format for this post doesn't really account for video sources, let alone live broadcasts. I think I'll just write this off as a special occasion. I've four months of catching up to do and the general music blog is now getting dusty so I'm going to make sure I can complete at least another week here and then hopefully alternate between them after that.

July 7, 2011

1991- "Santa's Polka"

.....This is the fourth and final original song from Brave Combo's first Christmas album. I provided a few details about the album in the first of these posts (on Monday) but neglected to credit the band members. I'll rectify that now; note that each member is a multi-instrumentalist.
  • Carl Finch
  • Bubba Hernandez
  • Jeffrey Barnes
  • Mitch Marine
.....The fourth song is:
  • 02:40 "SANTA'S POLKA" (Bubba Hernandez, Jeffrey Barnes)
  • performed by Brave Combo
  • original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) 12/91
  • and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) 09/92
.....When Brave Combo's US label at the time, Rounder, showed an interest in releasing the album in the States, it asked if they could add a song about Hanukkah. This was not a problem (as if the band needed an excuse to record a hora). Rather than tack it on to the end, though, they placed the new song in the middle and relocated the secular instrumental "FROSTY THE SNOWMAN" from the end of the Japanese edition to after "HANUKKAH, OH HANUKKAH" (the new song), which would come after another secular number, "PLEASE COME HOME FOR CHRISTMAS". The rest of the album's tracks experienced minor shuffling with two exceptions: "LITTLE DRUMMER BOY" went from track 3 in Japan to track 11 in the US and the brief instrumental version of "JINGLE BELLS" went from the opening track to the closing track. That could be because on the Japanese album it functioned as a feint that would have been lost on an American audience. The Japanese album begins with a 0:42 version of "JINGLE BELLS" reminiscent of Raymond Scott's intro to "POWERHOUSE", suggesting that perhaps this album might be perfunctorily framing standards within a polka/klezmer matrix. It then follows that with their now-famous arrangement of "MUST BE SANTA". The original version of that song was an Alma Cogan B-side of a novelty song that spent nearly a year at the top of the Japanese charts in 1960-1961, "HE JUST COULDN'T RESIST HER WITH HER POCKET TRANSISTOR". Cogan's version of "MUST BE SANTA" was the A-side in the UK, where it bombed and in America it was overwhelmed by the Mitch Miller & His Gang version. The Brave Combo version is a polka that grabs you by the ears and swings you around the room. Their arrangement was acknowledged by Bob Dylan as the basis for his 2009 recording and accompanying must-see video. That same year the song appeared again on Brave Combo's second Christmas album, CD CHRISTMAS PRESENT, which was unfortunately all-covers, including a third of the songs covered on the first album.

.....Oh, and "SANTA'S POLKA" is a pretty good, up-beat number as well.

July 6, 2011

1991- "Corrido Navideño"

.....This is the third post of original songs from the following album:
  • 02:57 "CORRIDO NAVIDEÑO" (Bubba Hernandez)
  • performed by Brave Combo
  • original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) 12/91
  • and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) 09/92
.....There's more information about the album in the previous two posts which I won't repeat here. Regarding this song specifically, my Spanish is a little rusty but I know the word "navideño" is the adjective form of the word "Christmas". If I had to guess (because I don't know who would take polls about matters like this) I would assume that Americans who don't speak Spanish are more likely to recognize the noun "Navidad". [In English we use one word to mean both the holiday (noun) and a description (adjective) of things related to it.] The word "corrido" as it is used here points up some of the idiomatic differences between European Spanish and Mexican Spanish. The use of the word originated in Europe and described songs meant to praise, lionize or flatter leaders or persons of power (deserving or not). In a way, when we see someone serenading a loved one in a sitcom what we're seeing is a tongue in cheek allusion to a European corrido, since that practice is now considered antiquated and engaging in it is even more of a quixotic romantic gesture than whatever words are being sung. On the other hand, the Mexican corrido had evolved into something of a public service announcement. It may have had its origins in publicly applauding the local governors but before the days of television and improved literacy rates the corrido became a means of passing on folk wisdom and life lessons of all kinds. "CORRIDO NAVIDEÑO" is a retelling of the birth of Christ and if I didn't already know that the band was based in Texas I still would have concluded that this leaned more towards the Mexican tradition. The tempo is designated ranchera, and not being a dancer I'll certainly take their word for it.

.....A little internet sleuthing leads me to believe that Bubba's given name is Cenobio, named for his grandfather as is his publishing company, Don Cenobio Music. Tomorrow I'll make a point of including the band's full line-up.

July 5, 2011

1991- "It's Christmas"

.....High on my long list of albums overdue for reissue on CD is the soundtrack album to the David Byrne film "TRUE STORIES". About a year ago I posted the details on my general music blog:


.....And here, a year later, it remains out of print. I didn't recognize the name twenty-five years ago but Carl Finch, the only member of Brave Combo to have been in every line-up since the beginning, had a couple of credits on that soundtrack album and Jeffrey Barnes arranged one of David Byrne's songs as well. Finch contributes one of the four originals on Brave Combo's Christmas album [see previous post], a cha cha with lots of minor chords that would not be out of place in a They Might Be Giants set.
  • 03:39 "IT'S CHRISTMAS" (Carl Finch)
  • performed by Brave Combo
  • original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) December, 1991
  • and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) September, 1992
.....The third original is tomorrow.

July 4, 2011

1991- "Christmas In July"

.....Christmas has taken on a life of its own in Japan where gift giving was already an art and way of life long before Americans started to worry about the holiday becoming materialistic. It's true that there has been a Christian presence in Japan for a long time now, but one has to wonder if the prospect of wrapping presents doesn't have an even stronger spiritual appeal for the Japanese.

.....It was probably in the hopes of marketing some of those presents that someone from the Japanese record label P-Vine approached the Denton, Texas based folk-dance band Brave Combo about releasing an album of Christmas songs familiar to Americans. After more than a decade as a recording unit, Brave Combo hadn't considered doing a Christmas album since, while still a niche market, it has become saturated with rerecordings of the same few standards. They had already done well in folk/klezmer/polka circles are weren't interested in what would amount to competing with Barbara Streisand and Johnny Mathis for name recognition. The prospect of reimagining and reinterpreting traditional songs from a new perspective was always intriguing though, and the opportunity to play them live to an entire nation with few or no preconceptions about the songs was even more of a lure. So, in the summer of 1991 they recorded the self-produced album at Inside Track Studio in Denton and toured with the album's release in Japan in December. The not-so-dirty little not-so-secret of Christmas music is that it's almost never recorded during the season which it's intended to evoke. To be in stores ahead of Christmas it must be recorded at least a few months in advance. Thus, the likely inspiration for one of several originals from this fine album:
  • 02:12 "CHRISTMAS IN JULY" (Bubba Hernandez, Jeffrey Barnes)
  • performed by Brave Combo
  • original source: CD IT'S X-MAS, MAN! P-Vine PCD-2300 (Japan) December, 1991
  • and my source: CD IT'S CHRISTMAS, MAN! Rounder Records CD 9033 (US/Canada) September, 1992
.....Unlike many of the songs on the album, this one is not designated by a dance tempo. There is a touch of zydeco in it, but it's definitely not one pure style. There's also an odd break where they rewrite the titles of well known songs and carols to reflect summer themes and sing each in the melody of the respective song. If this song hasn't caught on it's not likely due to Rounder's small stature as a label (they're routinely up for Grammys). It's more likely due to the requisite musicianship to even attempt a cover of it.
.....There are a few more originals here and I'll be noting them over the next few days.

July 3, 2011

1984- "Thank God It's Christmas"

.....While I was turning my attention to my other blogs this spring the band Queen began yet another remaster/reissue program. It began with the first five studio titles in May, in which the bonus tracks of previous programs were removed and relocated to a second CD for each title, with additional material added. This may be great news for anyone too young to have sought out these albums before discovering the band while playing their songs in a video game, but it's harder for older collectors to get too excited over reissues of a band whose catalog has been generally well-handled and available for the better part of two decades. While I like the band, I could never keep pace with the fans who seek out what seems like an endless stream of rare alternate versions and test pressings that are constantly surfacing. In some cases the differences between variants are cosmetic and just a matter of packaging. In others, the differences are genuine such as with alternate takes or radically different mixes. Today's post involves a simple digital remaster, but it heralded the Silver Anniversary reissue program, which garnered more attention than this year's Fortieth Anniversary. Because most of their catalog had already been remastered for the band's Twentieth Anniversary, the Silver 'Jubilee' had to be a bit over the top, so they issued a 20-CD box called ULTIMATE QUEEN. Yet, even with 20 CD's you won't find this song on it.

  • 04:19 "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" (Roger Taylor, Brian May)
  • -N/A- b/w "MAN ON THE PROWL" (Freddie Mercury)
  • -N/A- b/w "KEEP ON PASSING THE OPEN WINDOWS" (Freddie Mercury)
  • performed by Queen
  • original source: 7" EMI QUEEN5 (UK) November 26, 1984
  • and my source: CD5 EMI Parlophone CDQUEEN22 [7243 8 82611 2 8] (UK) December 11,1995
.....The only US release of the song in 1984 (and for some time after that) was 12" Capitol V-8622, which, like the British 12", had extended versions of the two B-side tracks. Throughout 1984 EMI had released four other singles from the LP WORKS. Those two B-sides were the only songs from the album that had not yet been released on a single in some form or another. The A-side was recorded in a special session late in the year and they must have seemed like conspicuous candidates for the flip, despite having nothing to do with Christmas.

.....The following year Queen had no new album prepared and instead released the 14-LP box COMPLETE WORKS. It contained all their previous original studio albums (including WORKS) plus 2LP LIVE KILLERS and an exclusive rarities LP called COMPLETE VISION, which contained "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS". The box couldn't be released in the US because the albums prior to WORKS were released through Elektra in the US. Another UK-only appearance of the song in 1985 was the first Christmas edition of the popular compilation series NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL MUSIC. Brazilians got the most convenient package for Queen fans that year, a latter-era compilation that not only included "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS", but was named after it, an unusual move for an otherwise secular compilation but any fan in Brazil who still couldn't find the song just wasn't trying.

.....I first encountered the song on CD. It was an unusual package, 3CD THE QUEEN COLLECTION Hollywood Records HR-61407-2 (US) November 10, 1992. While the UK and Europe had recently seen GREATEST HITS Volumes I and II on CD, North America made do with two haphazard, non-chronological compilations: CLASSIC QUEEN and GREATEST HITS (no relation to the UK version). Bizarrely, THE QUEEN COLLECTION repackages those two compilations with a third disc entitled QUEEN TALKS, a nearly hour-long BBC Radio One interview followed by "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS".

.....After their final album, MADE IN HEAVEN, was released in November 1995, England saw the release of the CD5 that I cited as my source. It was the first single off the album, "A WINTER'S TALE". Track 2 was "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" and track 3 was a live track called "ROCK IN RIO BLUES". The third track was not on the 7" vinyl format, but it was on the first US single off the album. It was the B-side of "TOO MUCH LOVE WILL KILL YOU", which wouldn't become a UK single until February 1996. Both the UK "TOO MUCH..." and a second version of the "A WINTER'S TALE" single use remastered mid-70's A-sides as their 'flip' tracks (even though CD singles aren't flipped over to play and don't have B-sides; there really should be a better term for the subordinate, non-hit tracks on CD singles). That was probably done to advertise the 20CD ULTIMATE QUEEN box, out at the time. If you're shopping online for the song "THANK GOD IT'S CHRISTMAS" and don't want a full album be advised that it's not on the second version of the "A WINTER'S TALE" single. Be careful to check the full track listing or the catalog number I included in the source note.

.....Another convenient location for the song is CD GREATEST HITS III Hollywood Records HR-62250-2 (US) 1999. The whole album is really a good distillation of their spotty final years. Since the second five albums due to be remastered for 2011 don't include WORKS, this compilation might be the most readily available source after downloadable mp3's.

July 2, 2011

1962- "Henry Had A Merry Christmas"

.....Well, I'm a little rusty at this. Let's start with something tricky, then the rest of the month will seem easy. I first found this number (both sides of the single, actually) on a two-for-one CD. Both albums were originally released in 1962 on the Liberty label:
  • LP OLD RIVERS Liberty LRP-3233(mono) or LST-7233(stereo) (US) 1962
  • LP 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS...BACK HOME Liberty LRP-3257(mono) or LST-7257(stereo) (US) 1962
.....Complication #2? These aren't even consecutive albums. Due to the success of his television series, "The Real McCoys", on top of decades of film work, Walter Brennan released five albums in 1962. If the release schedule strictly followed the order of the catalog numbers, these would be the first and fourth, respectively. More likely, the Christmas album was recorded and/or mixed fourth and held back until the holiday season, probably making it the last album of the year. He only made two further albums for Liberty as far as I can tell and did spotty, irregular recording before and after that. That he released more than two or three albums such as this in his lifetime, let alone more than eight is a testament to the public's boundless appetite for faux sentiment and maudlin kitsch. Brennan doesn't really sing so much as speak song lyrics as though he were giving a dramatic poetry reading in that rusty door hinge of a voice; his vocal chords were damaged by toxic gas during his World War I military service, according to imdb (The Internet Movie Database). The homespun plainsman demeanor was also an act, an amalgamation of numerous film characters he was often typecast to play. He was born and raised in Massachusetts and reportedly did not speak with either the accent or folksy idioms he affected when on mike. Most of his recordings are formulaic studies in insincerity, wistful recollections of a past he never lived, always including a calculated whine timed to imply how physically painful it is that there has been some form, any form, of change in the world. It's like someone spliced Ronald Reagan with Dr. Zachary Smith.

.....Complication #3? None of the songs here are given song-writing credits. The CD insert reduces the jacket art for the LP's in order to fit both on the cover. The interior of the insert reproduces the art from the backs of the jackets, but since the original format didn't have songwriting credits on the back, the CD doesn't either. There's no information on the inlay card or the disc surface. The label's website no longer lists the title. Predictably, websites offering song lyrics attribute credit to Brennan, but most of those sites don't even have the correct lyrics. Their only reason to exist is to be tar pits of viruses and pop-up ads, so they'll promise access to any kind of information but they gain no advantage in being accurate and suffer nothing for delivering misinformation. The next line of action would be to find a scan of the label, either for the single or for the full album. My usual sources turned up nothing but I noticed a number of You-Tube videos, some of which open and/or close with shots of the actual record and sat through a couple. Either the videos or my monitor wouldn't attain a sharp enough focus to read the label, unfortunately. Bored at the prospect of running down another blind alley, I read the comments left for the videos while I thought about what kind of search options I had left. One of the commentors claimed that their grandfather, Cliff Crofford, was the author. I took that with a grain of salt, since delusional people and would-be con artists are always claiming tangent relationships to fame, however minor. The name clicked for some reason, though, and when I reread the CD insert I noticed that the liner notes for the earlier of the two albums, OLD RIVERS, mentioned that the author of that title track was Cliff Crofford. It took little time to find a few different biographies of Crofford and the records of a library's holdings. The sheet music in the library corroborated what I found in the biographies, that Crofford did indeed write the song below and at least two others on the Christmas album.

  • 02:30 "HENRY HAD A MERRY CHRISTMAS" (Chris Crofford)
  • 02:29 "WHITE CHRISTMAS" (Irving Berlin) [see below]
  • performed by Walter Brennan [and possibly the Johnny Mann Singers]
  • original source: 7" Liberty 55518 (US) 1962 [probably December]
  • and my source: CD TWO CLASSIC ALBUMS FROM WALTER BRENNAN: OLD RIVERS & 'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS... BACK HOME EMI-Capitol Music/Collectors' Choice Music 72438-19218-2-1 (US?) 1996
.....Both sides were produced by [Thomas] "Snuff" Garrett and arranged and conducted by Ernie Freeman. Cliff Crofford, I discovered, was a staff writer at Liberty. That might explain why I couldn't find any trace of an earlier recording of "HENRY..." by Crofford himself. In fact, I couldn't find any recordings other than Brennan's. It's possible that he also wrote the poem about snow that Brennan recites during what would otherwise have been the instrumental break in "WHITE CHRISTMAS", but since the A-side is the focus of this post and the B-side is far from an original recording I'm going to absolve myself from tracking down that detail. Like Crofford, the Johnny Mann Singers were part of the Liberty staff and performed as backing vocalists for a number of artists on the label, occasionally releasing titles of their own.

.....Complication #4? Most sites still selling the two-for-one CD cite the release date as 2004. As I mentioned earlier, the label's site no longer offers it and my own copy was bought used. The price sticker has the name of a store that I seem to remember closing at about that time. It could be that the CD was pressed twice or it could be that the 1996 copyright date on my copy refers to an earlier cassette issue. For what it's worth, Amazon places the cassette as being released in 1998 and the CD in 2000. It could also be that the 1996 date is when Collectors' Choice made the CD available for mail order only and that 2004 was when remaining copies circulated through retail outlets. I remember being on CC's mailing list and receiving their catalog, even though I had never ordered anything from them. (I used to buy a lot of music, and, even before the days of the internet, if you paid by credit card you'd get some strange offers in the mail. The CC catalogs were interesting and full of artists not seen in years, but not on the bizarre end of the scale.)

.....If any reader has inside information on the CD package (or, ideally, the original vinyl), feel free to leave a note in the comment field. I'll be notified, even after the post has become old.

July 1, 2011

Christmas In July

.....Sorry for the delay. I discovered in February that while I owned copies of all of Motown's Christmas pop music, there were in fact some subsidiary titles (now long out of print) of which I was unaware, including some instrumental jazz and a ventriloquist's album. (I know, I know: how can you tell if he's moving his lips on a record?) It looks like the delay will extend the blog's life into next year anyway, so I'll complete the Motown listings next February. Tomorrow, when it's not so late, I'll give a full entry. At the moment I want to explain something about the criteria for selections. I touched on this somewhat in the second post, "Label Glossary", but I've avoided making hard and fast rules about what I'll discuss because, after all, this is a hobby done for fun. One objective is to maximize verifiable information, citing sources when necessary. Another is to keep an open mind and include the widest variety of original twentieth century music related to Christmas. What gets excluded? Usually covers, for the sake of brevity. Anything else? Well, when I finally dragged myself back to this poor neglected blog the Elton John song "COLD AS CHRISTMAS" occurred to me. The chorus has the line "It's July, but it's cold as Christmas in the middle of the year." It's the lead track on his 1983 MTV-era comeback album, LP TOO LOW FOR ZERO, so even though I don't remember it being a 7" single (was it?) I've heard it enough that it keeps cropping up in my memory when I try to recall pop songs about Christmas. Of course, one huge advantage that my memory has over an online term search is that I know that the song takes place in July and it's about a divorce or break up. It's a simile, not a Christmas song. A decent song, but this blog isn't the right place for it. So, while I hadn't seen it as necessary to mention before, I may as well go on record that the songs here need to be about the holiday or season in some sense. And I hope to see more of them soon.