I present to you an incredibly selfish selection of five songs that would get played in my fantasy kitchen on Christmas Day. Or in my fantasy shed. Or my fantasy music room. Or anywhere, really.
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| Jesus Christ - Big Star | Rousing chorus? Check. Attempt at carol-style lyrics? Check. Not massively ambitious but whatever “it” is, it’s got it. Why don’t you know it already? It's too understated, perhaps, to be truly popular. |
| Holy Evening - Dennis Wilson | Don't breathe while listening to Wilson's records: you might break them. Fragile-sounding as ever, this is a sort of secular mantra. I imagine it’s like one of Allen Ginsburg's dreams. |
| The Fairytale of New York - The Audrey 3000 | Nice to hear a pair of computers singing this all-too-human favourite. You can find Audrey 3000TM’s Myspace page here. As here, she’s often found duetting with mr_hopkinson's computerTM. Curious pair. |
| Christmas Lullaby - Cary Grant | Grant made only one real record: a 45rpm cut in October 1967, inspired by the birth of his daughter. There is even some singing on it, though it's more sprechsingen. Take the way he sings/speaks the lines: “Loving you/The way I do.” It’s heartbreaking. |
| The Twelve Days of Christmas - Mabel Mercer | A singer who embodies the word gusto. It’s a real epic, rhapsodic almost, with a beautiful string arrangement. It says a lot about Mercer’s interpretation that it sounds like this could be the original. Her melisma on the phrase “Five gold rings” is suffused with such fervour I almost blush to hear it, and to hear her growl “Two turtle doves” on the final verse is to be indelibly marked. |
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