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[Blog] CHRISTMAS CAROLS!

Thu, December 22, 2011

Have you caught the Christmas carol bug?

You don’t need me to tell you it’s nearly Christmas, that’s a pretty obvious thing even if you haven’t looked at a calendar recently. If the lights on the high street haven’t given it away, and you haven’t turned the TV on and seen all of the adverts with snow and tinsel then the constant bombardment your ears will have been getting from Christmas from every angle should have done it.

I’ve never been a massive fan of the Christmas carol before but it’s amazing what a week ill in bed with eyes so sore you can’t look at a screen can do. No TV or internet means only one thing, the radio. A week of Radio 2 has opened my eyes to the beauty of the Christmas carol and now I absolutely love them! I realised after about 2 hours of listening that I wasn’t going to be able to escape them and then slowly I began to embrace them, singing along in a husky sore throat kind of way to all of the classics all day with Simon Mayo and Chris Evans and then suddenly something brilliant happened. Jamie Cullum came on and did an hour long show and played a lot of new and alternative carols which were all very different and also very very good! It showed how a song about Christmas didn’t have to be 500 years old and sung on Songs of Praise by a fusty old choir. A Christmas song can be fun, exciting and fresh and be enjoyed by people outside of churches and Salvation Army buildings.

So with that in mind I’ve collected some of my favourites for you all to enjoy and see if you can catch the Christmas carol bug that I have and really get into the Christmas spirit!

1. This is probably my favourite of all the ones I’ve heard so far. It always confused me when I was little and I watched Neighbours and they were celebrating Christmas at the height of summer on the beach, how on earth could that feel Christmassy? Surely you need snow, a log fire and long dark nights to get into it? Surely a sunny day just feels wrong doesn’t it? Apparently not, here KT Tunstall sings a Hawaiian Christmas classic and manages to sound both Christmassy and exotic all at the same time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkzdq-ktLws

2. Now I’m not sure you can call this one a carol as such, apparently Miles Davis was asked to contribute to a Christmas album and this was his offering. Whether it’s tongue in cheek or just a two fingers up to them is for you to decide!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnRmHszDaa0

3. Harry Connick Jnr has style, and bags of it, Santa style sacks of it if you will. He alos makes me want to spend Christmas in New Orleans if this is how they do it? Do these guys ever not have more fun than we ever had? All i do know is that I’m still feeling pretty ill and I could do with feeling a bit more Santariffic sometime soon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ8uZZhepHE

4. Good old Sufjan Stevens is up now, he’s a man with a hell of an imagination which is perfect for a mn who’s making up his own Christmas songs, there was so many to choose from from him that it was almost impossible to decide. “That was the worst Christmas ever”, “Did I make you cry on Christmas Day (Well you deserved it)” or “Hey guys, it’s Christmas time!” ooooh so much choice. In the end I went for the best title as well as the most upbeat, so I present to you Come on! Let’s boogie to the elf dance!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bzrkyy9h4x8

5. Hotly tipped to be the Christmas number 1 single over the usual X Factor single is this song sung by the wives of men serving in the military in Afganistan this Christmas. It’s been plugged by Radio 2 and has so many celebrities behind it, it almost has to make it. It’s not to everyone’s tastes but one thing it does do is sum up all the important things about Christmas. The enjoying family, the giving, the love and the community that so often gets lost amidst all of the commercial aspects and materialism that the businesses bring in to make us spend money. What better present could you get this Christmas than being surrounded by all the people you love most in the world?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hR6O7VxKaQ