Christmas albums, huh? Who’d have ’em?
But this one is Bing on a bong, a white Christmas not to be sniffed at, a skinned-up toke of smoke and mirrors turning the festive playlist into a surreal, sublime set of croaks and howls that get to the heart of what it’s really all about!
Yes, Bob’s strange 2009 offering surely must be the best Christmas album of all time… well, that’s the vote of the Preservation Society anyway.
Here are the festive songs which dominate playlists across the Western World: Stay Another Day – East 17, All I Want For Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey, Last Christmas – Wham!, Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love, White Christmas – Bing Crosby and Fairytale of New York – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl.
And there lies the rub… it is the grand old museum to moronicism, the BBC that’s losing me wives left right and centre, family, friends and sanity.
Yes, let’s put blame where blame lies … it is the mindless, moribund cynicism of the Christmas List compilers at the smug twee BBC that are driving me to distraction and making me hate what was once the celebration of an inspirational life.
The Bible may be a mythology but it’s a mythology intended to take us to a higher place – not to Heaven 17.
And yet, for some strange reason, it’s Bob’s album that seems to mortify people.
But you get that deep, warm and gravelly voice backed by a brilliant band and more than a nod to tradition on f Oh Come all ye Faithfull, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem and Hark the Herald Angels Sing.
And of course the madness of Here Comes Santa Claus written by Hal Moore and Bill Frederic and first released in November 1960 by Mitch Miller on Columbia.
It was produced by Dylan-pseudonym Jack Frost and features David Hidalgo of Los Lobos.
The royalties went to charities like Feeding America in the USA, Crisis in the UK, and the World Food Programme in perpetuity.
And of course there is that wig he wore in the video … remember his lyric ‘I’m no pig without a wig, please treat me kind…”?
Well many didn’t treat him kindly at all over it.
He wore a similar wig for Masked and Anonymous and kept wearing it when filming was over for sometime.
Good on ya Bob! You made Christmas for so many of us in 2009 – and it’s still doing it today!
#christmas #festivemusic #bobdylan #mustbsanta #Christmasfromtheheart #bingonabong #bestever
