
No real rhyme or reason to the songs I picked today, just songs I like.
- Lucy & Schroeder From A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy asking Schroeder to play her a song.
- Walt Kelly, “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie” From the comic strip Pogo by Walt Kelly, this was a classic song they sang in the swamp one year. Dad knew it and used to sing it, and Uncle Jack mentioned it a while back.
- John Williams and The Boston Pops, “Sleigh Ride” This was written by Leroy Anderson, who also wrote “The Syncopated Clock,” “Holiday for Strings,” and “The Typewriter,” among others. Arthur Fiedler used to feature Leroy’s music in performances by The Boston Pops, and as you can see John Williams continued the tradition.
- Los Straitjackets, “Linus and Lucy” Written by Vince Guaraldi for A Charlie Brown Christmas, it’s been featured in all the Peanuts specials since. Los Straitjackets are an instrumental rock band from Nashville that performs in masks. I rather like them, myself.
- United States Navy Band, “Dueling Jingle Bells” When you cross “Dueling Banjos” with “Jingle Bells,” the results are pretty amazing, as you’ll see and hear in this clip. Didn’t get the names of the players, but all are senior NCO’s.
- Irish Defence Forces, “The Little Drummer Boy” The pipers from the Irish Defence Forces, the military of the Republic of Ireland, play this. I was in a bagpipe mood.
- Clan Currie, “Angels We Have Heard On High” More Christmas bagpipes, this by a family group.
- Judy Garland, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” From the 1944 film Meet Me In St. Louis starring Judy Garland. These are the original lyrics from the movie; most popular versions use different lyrics. The choir at church does this during the Christmas season at the Sign of Peace, and I find it very hard to keep my composure.
- John Denver and The Muppets, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” From 1979’s John Denver and the Muppets: A Christmas Together. After the last song, I figured we could use a laugh.
- Arlo Guthrie, “The Pause Of Mr. Claus” From his 1968 live album. In the interest of time, I found a version that just had the song. The longer one had a pretty funny monologue that was indicative of the time.
- Andy Williams, “It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year” Andy Williams and Christmas go together like Scotch and soda.
And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for December 18, 2017. Only seven more days ’til Xmas!
Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Cathy, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.