As today is Sunday, my Advent Calendar window is opening as usual on some versions of Christmas carols. This is the last Sunday before Christmas – in case you hadn’t noticed – and this gives me a problem: how to fit in all of the remaining songs on my list of candidates! I’ve thought about this for longer than my usual nanosecond or two and, having reduced that list to three songs, I’m stuck. So you’re getting all three – hope you don’t mind!

Today’s first one is by a singer who I loved when she was in the Eurythmics, but whose solo career has largely passed me by. On the evidence of this, I should perhaps have a rethink:

I absolutely love that! The folk, almost pagan, treatment is very much to my taste, and her powerful voice carries the song so well. The video is brilliant, too. This was released on her album A Christmas Cornucopia in 2010. The album peaked at #16 here and at #35 in the US. This track was also released as a single, but only got as far as #126 here, failing to chart anywhere else. But it gets us off to a rousing start, I think!

My second carol for today is also given a folk-based treatment, but I could make a case for saying that carols and hymns are a kind of folk music anyway, so I don’t see anything wrong in that! This is one of those unlikely collaborations that sometimes crop up in music:

Isn’t that lovely? The Chieftains have released many albums featuring an array of guest singers, and this is from one of those: The Bells of Dublin, which came out in 1991. I can’t find any details of chart placings, but the album has been certified ‘Gold’ in the US for over 500k sales, so I think it has done alright. Another of the guests on the album is Jackson Browne, who recorded a version of his song The Rebel Jesus: I featured his original on Day 5 of this series. (Update – I’ve been advised since posting that this video isn’t available in the US: hopefully this link will let you hear the song, though the image is static – https://youtu.be/7e4euOE_xuw )

Completing today’s package of three songs is another by a female vocalist. This is, in a word, incredible:

This carol was first performed in Austria on Christmas Eve, 1818. It has been recorded many times, and according to Wikipedia Bing Crosby’s 1935 version is the fourth best-selling single of all time: I have my doubts about that! Sinead released it as a single in 1991, when it reached #12 in her native Ireland and #60 here in the UK. I think those placings really underrate it: her performance, and this lovely video, are wonderful.

As ever, I leave you with my image of the day. Today’s is less of a ‘funny,’ more a piece of social comment on these strange times in which we are living. I share it for the 18m UK citizens, of whom I am one, who yesterday had their Christmas cancelled by the ineptitude and vacillation of our completely useless Prime Minister:

I’ll see you again tomorrow, perhaps without the social comment! 🙂