[Please note: I don’t know what happened with this post, but after my final run through I hit the ‘publish’ button and then found that the final song and an ad, plus my closing words, have dropped off the version you can see on the web. BUT the full version is visible in the Reader, so please read it there!]
That has rather set out my stall, hasn’t it! For those who have joined me since this time last year, or who were asleep for the month, December has been the time in which I have gone big with posting here: for several years I ran an Advent Calendar of songs, cartoons and adverts every day from 1-25 December, but I scaled that back last year. The new format seemed to work well so I’m going with it again: I’ll be using my Tuesday Tunes and midweek posts for seasonal offerings, leaving me free to keep up with the Song Lyric Sunday themes on, wait for it… Sundays.
There will be some new (for me) ones amongst these, and I’m widening the approach to include a couple of more general seasonal songs away from the specifics of Christmas. I’m kicking things off with four returning favourites of mine, plus one which goes down the Holidays route to keep in the good books of my American friends, though what the season will have become over there after four more years of Numpty and his clowns I hate to think. Perhaps I should keep politics out of this, having already lost one follower this year who didn’t like my comments about her beloved leader: that’s Morons Against Good Advice for you! But, on with the tunes! This first one is a seasonal favourite of mine and, it seems yours, judging by the response it always receives:
The Dropkick Murphys and The Season’s Upon Us have become a regular feature of my Advent posts, deservedly so, I think. When I first played it I said: “You might need to watch that more than once to get all of the jokes, there are so many packed into it. The Dropkick Murphys are an American ‘Celtic punk’ band, from Boston, who clearly revel in their Irish roots, and I love this video. The lead singer, Ken Casey, doesn’t have a voice for lullabies but it is well suited to this one! The band has been going since 1996, and Casey is the only original member still there. Their other videos are fun, too, if you want to follow up on them.” I stand by those comments, as it does bear a repeat watch or three to catch everything, which is why I play it every year! And if you’ve ever seen the video for their ‘homage’ to one of the Sex Pistols, Mick Jones Nicked My Pudding, you’ll know what I mean about them being funny. Is Christmas like that in your house? The fun is good but I’m not sure I could take the chaos: when I was married our two person junior terrorist squad caused more than enough mayhem!
Those who have been with me for a while may recall that I was stunned two years ago to receive a comment from one of the musicians I had played, which I then turned into a post – on which he commented further. That post was A Star Is Born (Or Perhaps Not) – the title was a reference to me, not him! In that one I played several more of his tunes, including this one, a rather gentle reflection on how the season might have something unwelcome waiting for us:
That was Dax, with Happy Holidays, the tale of a relationship that ended at this time of year. If you check out my post from 2022 you’ll see more of his story, and how the music industry has treated yet another talented individual badly when loads of utter crap sells millions. He’s a nice guy, too, which for me makes this even more unfair: anyone who can give us songs like this one is fine in my book, and deserves to be much better known.
I’ve played this next one for the past four years, since it was first released, and as it always goes down well I’m bringing it back for another airing:
Patty Gurdy with Fiddler’s Green, and The Yule Fiddler. Patricia Büchler, aka Patty Gurdy, is German, just like Fiddlers Green, the ‘Irish’ band accompanying her in this. Her command of English is excellent, and she frequently posts in English – both speaking and in writing – on her Facebook page. She is also one of those artists who responds to comments made by fans, rather than leaving it to her ‘team’ to do the work, which is always good for brownie points from me, and she is an absolute delight. Her commitment to supporting mental health issues is to be admired, too, especially after she lost just about everything in the floods that hit Europe a few summers ago. She has played in several bands and has had a number of musical collaborations, including one with Faun, another band who you may have noticed that I really like. This song is the opening track on Patty’s 2020 EP Frost & Faeries: she also has another two EPs (Shapes & Patterns and Folk And Pop), several singles and two full length albums (Pest & Power, from 2019, and Tavern, released last month) to her name. She took up the hurdy gurdy in 2014, and is making a mark for herself with it. It is an instrument that is clearly important to German folk bands: Faun also has a hurdy gurdy player.
More folk music for you next, this time from England. The best live band I have ever seen, just being themselves:
Bellowhead, with Ring Christmas Bells. For me, it wouldn’t be Christmas without this bunch of lovable idiots. As I’ve said before, Bellowhead are the band I’ve seen live most often: I’ve been to many of their shows, including a Christmas one, and they really are as anarchic as the video suggests. But if one of the purposes of music is to entertain, Bellowhead do it in huge amounts: no one ever leaves one of their shows feeling short-changed. If they were moving around too quickly for you to count, they have eleven members and describe themselves as a ‘folk big band.’ This was released as a non-album single in December 2013, with a re-recorded version of Jingle Bells on the B-side, but didn’t make the charts. This one is tinged with sadness, though, as Paul Sartin – the chap doing a spot of doctoring with a trombone around the 1’40” mark – passed away two years ago from a sudden heart attack just as he was about to go on stage, at the age of just 51. He is much missed.
