Continuing my ‘clever’ combination of Tuesday Tunes and Advent Countdown, today I bring you episode 229 or 3, whichever way you look at it. This selection of five comprises four favourites that I have played in previous years plus one new one, with a bonus bit of fun to close with. So let’s not hang about, here comes the music…

First up, a regular visitor, a real rock ‘n’ roll classic:

They don’t come much more rock ‘n’ roll than Chuck Berry, do they! The song may have been around for donkeys’ years but that video was released in October 2020 and has accumulated more than 14m views in that time. I think it’s superb. The track was originally released as a non-album single in 1958, reaching #69 in the US – it has been re-released several times, and achieved its best ever position of #10 in the US in the last week of 2020. No doubt this animation helped! In the UK its highest chart placing was #36, in 1963 – it didn’t rush into the charts, did it? It was co-written by Marvin Brodie and Johnny Marks: the latter of those also wrote Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, which is a kind of prequel to this one. Wikipedia gives a very long list of cover versions of Run Rudolph Run but, thankfully, none by she who spoils Christmas: I dread to think what she’d have done with it!

Another rock classic while we’re in the mood:

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town was written by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie in 1934, and was first recorded that year by a banjo player called Harry Reser (and His Band). Bruce’s version was released in 1985 as the B-side to the single My Hometown, from the Born In The USA album. The single was a top ten hit in both the US and the UK and this track was also a minor UK hit on re-release in 2007. There are loads of versions of this but for me this is still the best, the most iconic of them all. I’ve never had the pleasure of going to one of Bruce’s shows but I understand that this one gets played whatever time of year it happens to be – it is that much a part of his catalogue! And for a change I’m playing a charming little animation to accompany it – you still get the sense of Bruce in concert from it, though.

Taking the pace down a little for the next two. This is one of my all time favourite Christmas songs, about the loneliness some people feel at Christmas, especially if life isn’t working out the way they hoped or planned. I think it is a beautiful song, and the video is superb:

Each year from 2006 to 2016 The Killers released a Christmas song to raise money for the Product Red charity, whose aim is to help increase awareness and reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in eight African countries. These were combined into an album, Don’t Waste Your Wishes, in 2016. Many of these singles made the lower reaches of the UK charts – more than they did in the US, in fact. Christmas In L.A. got to #92 in the UK, presumably a low placing in the face of too much competition from the usual re-released dross that fills the charts at this time of year. I have always felt that this, their 2013 offering, is the best of the bunch. The video stars Owen Wilson, in the role of a struggling actor, with Harry Dean Stanton being heard as the ‘voice of reason’ and making a brief cameo appearance. The song was written by the band in collaboration with Taylor Goldsmith, of the band Dawes, and Irving Berlin gets a writing credit too, for the inclusion of some of the lyrics from a little number called White Christmas. If you know the music of Dawes you will recognise how much of an influence Taylor had in this: in all honesty, this could really be a Dawes song, as it is so typical of their style. It is a lovely song, performed wonderfully, all brought together by a video which is a perfect fit.

I’ve played this next one a couple of times before. It’s a sweet little song with an absolutely gorgeous video – an overload of cute:

This is such a charming little song and a great video: the animation is incredibly good, though I would always recommend taking the teabag out of the cup before drinking! Ingrid Michaelson is a singer-songwriter and actor, in that order. Zooey Deschanel, younger sister of Emily (the Bones lady), is primarily an actor but also has a long musical career to her name, both as part of the band She And Him and also on collaborations like this. I think this is lovely, and couldn’t resist playing it again this year. If you want to hear more like this, it was a bonus track on the deluxe version of Ingrid’s album Songs For The Season, which was released in October 2018.

Today’s closer is the new one I promised you. This was released about ten days ago, so I think that counts as new. You may have seen the band Larkin Poe on here before: they are sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell with their band, and they started with a third sister as The Lovells. This is their take on another Christmas classic, a kind of ‘what we did on our holidays’ thing with the rest of the family:

I don’t think Larkin Poe will win any awards for I Saw Mommy Kicking Santa Claus, but it’s a bit of fun and Rebecca in particular is throwing everything of herself into it. She usually plays guitar but it seems she decided against it for this one – it would have cramped her style!

Today’s bonus video isn’t an ad, for a change: the crop of those is pretty dire so far this year. But this is another new video, released three days ago. Peter Kay’s Car Share with Sian Gibson is always fun, and this gives me the chance to let you hear snippets of songs I would never play – yes, even THAT one! This is Christmas in July:

That’s all for today, and I hope you’ve had fun with these. I’ll see you again soon for Part Four of the Advent Countdown, so until then stay safe and warm 🎅