MORE CHRISTMAS SONGS

There are so many good Christmas songs that would make good podcasts that I thought I'd write about a few more.  One that I think would be interesting is White Christmas. I know I mentioned it briefly last week but what I didn't know until a few days ago is that Irving Berlin, who wrote the song, was beset with tragedies. For one, his first wife contracted pneumonia during their honeymoon and died as a result. Another horrible tragedy is that his infant son, Irving Berlin Jr, from his second wife, died on Christmas day. That was something that affected him the rest of his life.

Another song could come from the album A Christmas Gift For You from Phil Spector. It is now considered a classic Christmas album. Sleigh Ride by The Ronettes is probably the most popular of the songs. When the album first came out it was a flop. It had the misfortune of being released on November 22, 1963, which is the day John F Kennedy was shot. I doubt Phil Spector would do the interview, although you never know. 

One last song that I think would make a particularly good podcast is I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause written by Jimmy Boyd. I had never heard of Jimmy Boyd, but apparently he was some kind of a child prodigy. He also has a great story. He wrote the song when he was a month shy of thirteen years old. It became an instant hit that sold two and a half million records in its first week. That was a big deal in the early fifties.  The most interesting part of the story is that the Catholic Church in Boston banned the record because it mixed sex with Christmas. According to news stories, Jimmy Boyd went to the Archdiocese in Boston and explained what the song was all about. The Catholic Church lifted the ban the very next year. I guess it took them that long to figure it out.

Like I said last week, I could go on. I was hoping to say that I have to do some Christmas wrapping. No such luck. Still need to do some shopping. I think i'm going to start using the Ringo hello and goodbye. Peace and love.

CHRISTMAS SONGS

Christmas music is a cottage industry. Almost everyone who is anyone has at least a Christmas song out, or even a whole album. And even a lot of people who no one ever heard of, have Christmas songs that have become huge hits. The good thing about Christmas songs is that they can have a long shelf life. I am certain that many of these songs would make good podcasts. For instance, Elmo and Patsy recorded Grandma got run over by a Reindeer in 1979 for forty thousand dollars. It is still popular during the holidays and has made Elmo a multi millionaire. It would be nice to interview him but he might be tough to get, especially during the holidays. He does over a hundred radio interviews and countless TV programs as well.

According to CNN, the biggest selling Christmas album of all time is the Elvis Presley Christmas Album, with over nine million albums sold. One of the songs on the album is the Irving Berlin classic White Christmas, which happens to be the number one Christmas song of all time. Upon hearing the Elvis Presley version of his song, Irving Berlin called radio stations to have the song and the whole album banned from the radio. Fortunately, almost everyone ignored Irving. Blue Christmas is the most popular song on the album and is the number two Christmas song of all time. Elvis supposedly did not want to record “Blue Christmas.” He was forced to record it by the producer, so he tried to do a version that was so bad that nobody would like it. Boy, was he wrong. Someone at work, who shall remain nameless, had the song on for almost the whole day one year. I was sick of it that day. It is, however, a terrific Christmas song.

Another song that might make a good podcast is Little Drummer Boy, which has been around since 1941. I didn't even know what the song was about until I read the lyrics. I guess I must've kept my focus on the pa rum pum pum pum. It is about a little boy who goes to see Jesus in his manger. He is very poor and does not have any gifts to bring to the newborn King. So he asks the Virgin Mary if he can play the drums for Jesus. She said yes, so the little boy played the drums and Jesus smiled at him. One of the lyrics to the song is “The ox and the lamb kept time.” What was going on on that manger? And how were they keeping time? With their feet? It is, however, a terrific song and one of my favorite versions is the unlikely pairing of Bing Crosby and David Bowie. It was recorded on September 11, 1977. David supposedly did it because his mother liked Bing. David starts out the scene on the TV program "Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas" asking Bing as he opens the door. “Hello...are you the new butler?” Bing laughs and replies, “Well, it's been a long time since I've been the new anything.” Bing was right. He died a month after that. Bowie hated the song and did not want to play it, so Ian Frazier, Larry Grossman and Buzz Kohan wrote the Peace On Earth part for David to sing.

Anyway, I could go on and on about the stories of Christmas songs but I gotta do some shopping. I will leave you with some lyrics to the Peace On Earth part of the song.

“Peace on earth, can it be
Years from now, perhaps we'll see.”

Let's just hope it's sooner than that.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE AND "CRY ME A RIVER"

After doing a podcast on Justin Timberlake's Cry Me a River, I will admit something about him. And it's rather embarrassing, if you will. I'm starting to like the guy. His music blows, but he's a good guy. Just kidding, his music is fine. And granted, I didn't really hate him before. I knew of him and sort of dismissed him and all his boy band friends. I'm basically a Rock 'n' Roller.

Having said that, I still don't consider myself a "fan". The only songs I've bought from him are Cry Me a River and Bye Bye Bye from NSYNC cause I had to for the podcast. Even having to check out the book Justin: The Unauthorized Biography from the library to do research was embarrassing. I almost felt compelled to tell the librarian that it was for my son who was with me. But he's only four. And much more into Zack and Cody. It actually turned out to be a decent book and I learned a few things.

For one, he lost on Star Search when he was a kid and that actually turned out to be a good thing. Figure that one out. If anything, that's an excellent life lesson to learn. Losing just might turn out to be one of the best things that ever happens to you. In Justin Timberlake's case, losing gave him the opportunity to go on the Mickey Mouse Club, where he met Christina Aguilera and JC, which he later recruited for NSYNC. He also met Britney Spears, who turned out to be his future girlfriend and the inspiration for his song "Cry Me A River." So in essence, losing a competition turned out to be a great career move.

Matt did the podcast and we interviewed Jessica, the self described greatest Justin fan. Her website is called World of Justin and is the number one Justin website. The good thing about the website is that, as far as I can tell, she updates almost every day. When I checked out the site to do this blog entry sometime ago, Jessica had written about Justin being snubbed again on People magazine's Sexiest Man issue. The entry was actually pretty funny and she wrote in her own voice, which is not an easy thing to do. I got to know her voice because I edited the podcast and had to hear the interview way to many times.

The thing that hooked me about doing a podcast for Cry Me a River was that before Justin could appear on the Grammy Awards, where he was nominated, he had to apologize for exposing Janet Jackson's breast during the Super Bowl half-time show. So he apologized while accepting his Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Cry Me a River." That was pretty amazing to me. Apologizing while receiving an award is something you don't see very often. That's gotta be a first.

One other thing that made me do the podcast is that the song is about Britney. As Jessica put it when Matt asked her what the song was about. I wasn't paying too much attention when Justin and Britney were an item, but they must've been a cute couple. It's too bad Britney hooked up with Kevin Federline sometime later because things started to deteriorate at that point.

Cry me a River is a pretty good song which is well produced by the renown record producer Timbaland. I wouldn't be surprised if Justin Timberlake has a long and successful recording career.