Today’s Christmas song is not exactly undiscovered or forgotten, but doesn’t get nearly the plays it should this time of year. “Christmas All Over Again” from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers is the lead track from 1992’s “A Very Special Christmas 2.” What I like about the song is that it embraces the season, but is also kinda casual about the whole thing.
This is just audio, but we’ll get to video in a bit.
“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is another one of those Christmas songs that doesn’t mention Christmas at all. Some folks have decided the song is creepy, but I’m with the gang who say it’s actually a liberating lyric. The guy and the gal want to spend some time together and the subtext is that they’re working on excuses to use if she doesn’t go home.
Originally, Frank Loesser (“Heart and Soul,” “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve”) would sing the song at parties with his wife, Lynn Garland. Loesser put the song in the 1949 romantic comedy “Neptune’s Daughter” and it won the 1949 Academy Award for Best Original Song. “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” is actually in the movie twice. First, sung by Ricardo Montalbán and Esther Williams. Then, in a switch-up, Red Skelton is the one who wants to go and Betty Garrett (Edna Babish on “Laverne & Shirley”) wants him to stay.
It’s a busy Friday, so today’s Christmas song is a quick one. Paul McCartney just released his new isolation album, “McCartney III,” let’s go back to the 1979 song you either love or hate … “Wonderful Christmastime.”
I’ll spare you covers by MF Doom, Harry Styles, and Chicago with Dolly Parton. Instead, here’s Macca and Martin Short, aka “Caleb and Monte” with a new Christmas song from SNL 2012 … and something familiar at the end.
Building off yesterday’s song, here’s another Christmas tune that proves the holidays aren’t always sugarplums and mistletoe. In 1989, “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)” was the last song on side two of The Ramones’ “Brain Drain.” Not a bad place for a Christmas song when the album comes out in March.
“Brain Drain” was the album that brought Marky Ramone back into the band, but also was the last one with Dee Dee Ramone. Dee Dee has since said he didn’t play bass on “Brain Drain,” and while he’s in the video for “Pet Semetery,” he’s replaced with C.J. Ramone for “Merry Christmas.”
I’ve been writing about a Christmas song each day for a couple weeks, but so far, no music from 2020. That changes today with Carly Rae Jepsen’s “It’s Not Christmas Till Somebody Cries” – and you don’t know how hard it was for me to not replace “Till” with “‘Til.”
Jepson’s carved out a solid career since first breaking big with 2012’s “Call Me Maybe” – three Top 40 singles, “Cinderella” on Broadway, Frenchy in “Grease: Live,” the theme song for “Fuller House”… Now, her first original Christmas song.