This is a spinoff from the “Christmas song you never want to hear again” thread.
The first one that comes to mind is the arrangement of “Do You Hear What I Hear” that my junior high band and chorus did every OTHER year. It was always stunning, and I never hear any arrangement of that song without thinking of one boy in particular beating the crap out of the tympanis at the end of the song. He’s one of my Facebook friends but rarely posts; I wonder if he remembers it.
Another is probably a few decades old, and was on a Christmas compilation album that was a favorite of a woman who co-ran a charity project I used to be involved with. It included the line “Oh yes, it’s Christmas time” several times over, sung by a woman with a powerful contralto voice. I forgot to write down the title and artist and can’t seem to find out who did it.
I also appear to be one of the few people who loves Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmas Time.” So sue me.
Dolly Parton’s Hard Candy Christmas. When my radio stations switch over to Christmas music around this time, I stop listening to them…except for just quickly checking in case they’re playing this song.
Juvenile as it may be, I look forward every year to tossng Duke Tumatoe’s naughty Christmas album into my shuffled Christmas Playlist that I play all day on Christmas. I get a charge out of seeing people’s faces when they catch a snippet and are wondering if they heard what they just thought they heard.
On a more serious note, there is a gentle, sweet carol on a Harry Belafonte Christmas album my mother used to play that will occasionally show up on the radio. The Gifts They Gave is the name.
Some years ago at the grocery store, they were playing music over the PA, and one of them was an absolutely beautiful “The Holly and the Ivy” by a female singer I don’t recognize. I’d like to hear that recording again.
And John McCutcheon has a couple of songs on his Winter Solstice album that I’ve never heard done by anyone else. One is his own “Christmas in the Trenches”, about a real-life miracle, the Christmas Truce of 1914. The other is an old carol that he lists as “Star in the East”, but which is apparently better known as “Brightest and Best”, which sounds like a sea-shanty.
It was always stunning, and I never hear any arrangement of that song without thinking of one boy in particular beating the crap out of the tympanis at the end of the song. He’s one of my Facebook friends but rarely posts; I wonder if he remembers it.