The Christmas CDs

January 13, 2009 | Filed Under Music | 1 Comment

I bet you thought I forgot…

No Way! I have six CDs (actually nine) of pretty cool music. Let’s share! Just a reminder of the premise: Three songs from each of the last five decades, all of which follow a theme of some sort. Now, with such a wide open mark these won’t all be new songs to Ye Old iPod. For example, my CD was filled with songs about or mentioning listening to the radio. Though I tried to stay away from the obvious, I imagine there were few surprises in that batch. Terry followed through on her threat to do an entire CD of Christmas songs, which included Dean Martin’s rendition of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside”, ELP’s “I Believe In Father Christmas” and Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas from the Family”. Mike gave us songs of Rebellion through the decades, from Country Joe & the Fish “Fixin’ To Die Rag”, Pere Ubu’s brilliant “Final Solution” and Anti-Flag’s “Sold As Freedom”. Mark had a similar approach but focused on songs of Peace, adding Tom Paxton’s “Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation”, Cake’s version of “War Pigs” and Lizzie West’s “19 Miles to Baghdad” to my collection. Tom headed for Power Pop with the classic “Open My Eyes” by the Nazz, Tom Robinson Band with “2-4-6-8 Motorway” and the underrated Plimsouls’ “A Million Miles Away”. Tommy the younger decided undertake a premise that always comes up and never gets chosen: songs over ten minutes! This endeavor – 15 songs at over 10 mins each – required an unheard of FOUR CDs. A long ride, to be sure – but introduced me to the Dirty Three (“Deep Waters”), James Blackshaw (“Stained Glass Window”) and Don Caballero (“No One Gives A Hoot”).

But I think the best of the bunch was Sean’s CD entirely of songs about Baseball! Sure – the classics were there: Meatloaf’s “Paradise By The Dashboard Light” and John Fogerty’s “Centerfield”. But there was also Bob Dylan’s “Catfish (7/28/1975)”, Dave Frishberg’s “Van Lingle Mungo”, and “Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio” by Les Brown and His Band Renown. Top the whole set off with “Tessie” by the Dropkick Murphys and you have a set that can’t be beat!

Good work to all (and Pat, I still need yours). The bar is raised for next year.

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1 comment so far
  1. Tommy January 13, 2009 1:07 pm

    Luckily for everyone else i may have hit my ceiling as far as how many cds i can make my annual collection. Next year I will shoot for one cd i promise