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Bob - 2007-12-21 13:39:17
Strangely enough, Edith's La Vie En Rose was in a recent skate video, ("Sorry", by the British skateboard company Flip), and the fact that the video is narrated (in pretty amusing fashion, actually) by Johnny Lydon/Rotten(whatever he's going with these days) probably had somethin' to do with that, since Venus in Furs is another unlikely inclusion (and maybe Mystery Train, though that might be another video). And it's actually more evocative for me in that video than in the one you linked to, cuz the segment features someone skating a ramp in a nice old stone farmhouse or barn in France... though, as you pointed out, my inability to quite get with her performance in the link may just speak to (my) mood. (And it wasn't that she wasn't doing herSELF justice... just a matter of degrees of evocativeness.) Way off topic, though, have you ever caught Keely Smith in PBS's Louie Prima special? She's my hero. It's just too bad she was born too soon to hook up with SuperDave Osbourne. (They might have had the most goofily deadpan offspring ever.)
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Eric - 2007-12-21 16:16:58
I thought I was the only one that didn't like "La Vie en Rose"!
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Paula - 2007-12-21 16:41:23
Ok, I'm glad it wasn't just me!
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Chris - 2007-12-21 22:03:39
Better song, and shes sexy as hell as well.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWdbD5IUuxg
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Sharon - 2007-12-21 23:28:39
"Des yeux qui font baisser les miens, Un rir' qui se perd sur la bouch'. Voila le portrait san retouch'. De l'homme auquel j'appartiens...."
***Points well taken, Paula, about the spoiling of Carols by their being so overplayed as to have become white, or rather red and green noise at this point. But you have to admire the staying power of some of these tunes from the middle ages. They've lasted for a reason. I still like Deck the Halls (Don we now our gay apparel!) and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (To save us all from Satan's power when we have gone astray!) Unfortunately, I haven't been able to summon up the proper poignant feeling for Little Drummer Boy ever since my little sister changed the lyrics one year to : rumpa pum pum, on my bum!***Signs of the Decline of the American Empire...sign 1: on a commercial for a department store, a little girl proclaims without irony, "What does Christmas mean to me? ..Cashmere!" (This might be a little more appropriately amusing if it were Nora in The Thin Man speaking to Nick while holding a martini.)Sign 2:prison "documentaries" on MSNBC are being promoted as "Season's Beatings".
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grigorss - 2007-12-21 23:55:52
As you might expect, I have a fairly limited number of Xmas tunes in my music library; when it comes to traditional carols, I like them sung by Dean Martin -- somehow his booze-tinged phrasing seems just right for the Holi-daze season. On the other hand, no Xmas music spells Christmas more to me than the themes worked up by Vince Guaraldi for "A Charlie Brown Christmas". The album includes a nice rendition of "Greensleaves", as well -- which is probably the only Christmas song I don't mind hearing year-round.
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Sharon - 2007-12-22 08:08:39
Quite right, grigorss! Those Guaraldi arrangements are still ear-exciting and gorgeous...the bleak beauty of winter, a weird kind of joy... (I think it must have been a lot of little kids' first exposure to jazz when it first appeared in 1965.)It's one of those wonderful coincidences of great art that's also wildly popular. "Greensleeves" is thought to have been written by Henry the VIII, no doubt to impress the ladies. "Alas, my lover, you do me wrong/To treat me so discourteously"...Sort of the 16th century version of "I ain't your steppin' stone!"**As with most popular things of those times, it was eventually taken over by Christians and the lyrics were cleaned up and changed into "What child is this?"
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iwombat - 2007-12-22 18:35:33
well, although I agree with your more general theories, my list would be almost the inverse of yours, with the little drummer boy (whose name I can barely stand to type) and Felice Navidad fighting it out at the bottom... A Charlie Brown Xmas, lovely... and my rule of thumb is that all the best xmas songs start with "O" or at least "Oh"...
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2fs - 2007-12-22 19:56:01
I don't mind the rockin' up of the carols too much - if it's done well. "Jingle Bell Rock" might have the word "rock" in its title...but it makes Pat Boone sound like the Dead Kennedys. My childhood, too, featured dirtied-up lyrics to "Little Drummer Boy" (okay, my teenhood) - I believe the chorus was re-worked to a command regarding rump-pumping. As for "Feliz Navidad"...how can you tell you heard it only once? It's the same two lines over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Generally, Christmas songs irk. Although I will say that that "Nine Inch Noels" medley on that Hotrox fella's mix is sidesplittingly hilarious - puts Trent's pathetic emotional grandstanding in its place. "I hurt myself today, pa-rumpa-pum-pum"...brilliant.
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Steve - 2007-12-23 15:17:18
"Nine Inch Noels" is available here. My favorite Xmas parody is still "What Sweet Child Of Mine Is This?" which I posted myself today, pa-rumpa-pum-pum
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RT - 2007-12-24 14:37:43
How I managed to avoid seeing the Bing and Bowie duet until a few hours ago, I don't know. This has always been my least favorite Xmas song. Then Bowie starts belting out "Peace on earth..." yikes! I'm enjoying Mindy Smith's "My Holiday" for the most part, which has standards and originals, but I have a high tolerance for high-voiced folk girls, being one myself.
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Paula - 2007-12-24 19:51:30
Linda Ronstadt put out a mighty fine Christmas album a few years back, which I am listening to as we speak. Her version of Joni Mitchell's "River" has warmed me to the song in a way that I hadn't felt previously--except when I heard Baby Party sing it beautifully in a Leonard Cohen Christmas production.
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Sharon - 2007-12-27 15:49:16
Correction to my above #1 sign of the Decline and Fall of the American Empire, saw the commercial again and it was even worse thn I'd remembered. "Do you believe in Santa?" "I believe in Cashmere!"
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