This will probably be my last posting before Christmas. And here I wanted to get to the latest Cherity news and some neato blog posts out there. Oh well, maybe in a few weeks we can get to those.
In the meantime, it’s a bit gloomy this year as holidays go: what with nobody having any money, all the financial scams being exposed (in both the private and government sectors), pitiful economy news day after day, shopping homicides (!), less sunlight, post-election withdraw, too many parties and obligations between Thanksgiving and the big day, right-wingers still insisting we all say the word Christmas, Christmas, Christmas 40 times a day because they’re inherently intolerant of sharing their holiday with other belief systems (where is the love, y’all?), a barrage of slashed-priced store sales reminding us how desperate the retail industry is, and my favorite holiday grievance–poorly strewn holiday lights on front lawns. I really hate that. I can’t stress this enough. I think subliminally it makes us all very grouchy. (for an example of bad Christmas decorating, see the Sonny & Cher Show set below; who hung that red garland so sloppily?) And people who can’t manage to string up their lights properly are always too lazy to take said atrocities down in a timely manner–which is January 1st people; it’s why you get the day off.
Day off/Lights off: just remember that.
Here are some Cher-related Christmas activities for you to do this week:
- Get your 2009 Cher calendars at this site dedicated to AIDS Awareness
- Send some Cher Xmas e-cards like the one to the right (and more) from the site Cher style
I’m in the process of compiling my favorite Xmas songs this year for 8 glorious hours of listening on Christmas Day. My bf threatened to bury my iPod to prevent this from happening.
As it happens, Cher fans have been lobbying for a Cher Christmas album for quite a while. This could be a brilliant happening or it could be disastrous. That predicament encapsulates the great excitement of being a Cher fan right there. As it stands the only Cher Xmas tracks available are “O Holy Night” Listen (Cher) and “Jingle Bells” (Sonny & Cher trying to sound very hip – it’s funny) from their first variety show found on a compilation Xmas CD I once bought at JC Pennys and Cher’s duet with Rosie O’Donnel, “Christmas, Baby Please Come Home” (the U2 song not to be confused with “Please Come Home for Christmas” by the Eagles) available on Rosie’s Christmas duet CD.
My own Cher wish list for Christmas songs includes her singing “Little Altar Boy” (done previously by The Carpenters) which is so utterly melancholy. I love sad Xmas songs, my all time favorite being the bittersweet one by Judy Garland “Have Yourself A Very Merry Christmas” from the movie Meet Me in St. Louis.
I would also give my kingdom to hear a mash-up of Cher doing the aforementioned “O Holy Night” as a duet with Cartman’s hilarious South Park version. I smell instant cult hit. And let’s face it, a Cher Christmas album would sell well on a tinsel-strewn shelf of the Caesars Cher store next fall.
Cher Scholar’s List of Depressing Xmas Songs
(just be glad I won’t be listing Wham’s “Last Christmas”)
- Have Yourself a Very Merry Christmas – Judy Garland
- Little Altar Boy – The Carpenters
- Hard Candy Christmas – Dolly Parton
- Blue Xmas – Miles Davis
- Silver and Gold – Burl Ives (from the tragicomedy Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer)
- You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch – Thurl Ravenscroft (a.k.a. Tony the Tiger)
- Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby and David Bowie (not bloody likely which makes this song so sad)
- River – Barry Manilow (yeah, he Christmas-ified Joni Mitchell’s song from her Blue album)
- I Believe In Father Christmas – Emerson Lake and Palmer (one version has a lame ending – beware of that version)
- White Christmas – Otis Redding
- Box of Money – Pearl Bailey
- Alone on Christmas – Darlene Love from Home Alone (Darlene is the sh*t)
- Merry F*cking Christmas – South Park
- All I Want For Christmas is You – John Waite
Depressingly Cheerful Songs
- With Bells On – Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton (pretty much any Christmas song by Dolly Parton greatly increases my holiday spirit against my will)
- Mary’s Boy Child – Boney M. (loved to dance to this one when I was 9 in 1979; which I still do but now I like to pretend I’m a Peanuts character)
- Jingle Baby – Stephanie Mills (It’s sexy and I can see Cher doing it)
- Joy to the World – Mariah Carey (hate the drum machine but kind of like her mash-up of the traditional with the Three Dog Night song – joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea!)
- God Bless Us Everyone – Celine Dion (guilty pleasure)
- The First Noel – Air Supply (see above)
- Holly Jolly Christmas – Burl Ives
- Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy – Buck Owens
Best of the More traditional:
- I Wonder as I Wander & Ave Maria – Barbra Streisand
- Agnus Dei – Amy Grant
- Children, Go Where I Send Thee (I only have a Michael McDonald version but I’m sure there must be a better one out there)
- Santa Claus Is Coming to Town – Cyndi Lauper and Frank Sinatra (odd but it works)
- Here Comes Santa Claus – Elvis Presley (classic Elvis and fun to sing along)
- Silver Bells – Dean Martin (see Elvis entry above)
- The Christmas Song – Mel Torme (no one else should sing this one)
Of Note
- TLC’s Sleigh Ride (more cautious sounding than cheerful)
- The Chanukah Song, Part I and II (Adam Sandler)
- Original Heat Miser/Snow Miser songs from Year Without a Santa Clausare not available on iTunes but you will find the band Bag of Donuts’ trying to be fierce with “Heat Miser” (with “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” tacked on at the end), Crash Vinyl doing an agro-flaming version of “Snow Miser,” and Miami Relatives doing a groovy expanded version of “Put One Foot in Front of the Other” from Santa Claus is Coming to Town.
- Carol of the Bells – South Park (um-kay)
Bf’s choices:
- That drunken ramble by The Pogues – Fairytale of New York
- I Hate Christmas – from Scrooge(our version is Anthony Newley from The London Cast but he loves the TV version with Albert Finney—and who wouldn’t?)
Paul Shaffer’s impersonation of Cher’s “O Holy Night” appearing every year on Letterman
Mary Mary Christmas here’s a link to Cher singing that historical holiday medley that Paul so fondly remembers each and every year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQw0oEk2Ngg
Happy Hollidays
No take down those decorations already before they get dusty.
CHER’sTyler
Patti Labelle sings that sings “This Xmas”, too.
I like Roberta Flack and Donny. They were singing on Koit Xmas.
I think that Whitney Houston song was, “Do you here what I hear?”- where she downplays the high notes.
AND I am going to kill my Dr. Rose… Ssslllloooowwwllly!!!!
I had a ‘Dr. Rose’ chiropractor as well, JimmyDean! She was great. Looked like that big chick that was on Third Rock…..not Jane Curtin….Kristen something I think.
This Christmas ~ Donny Hathaway……..best one of all!
its the last song on
Patti Labelles xmas cd, she did several years ago.
I HAVE silent night by stevie nicks’ “Silent Night” but I bought the ORIGINAL LP the year it came out. Special Olypics. Keith Herring…anyone remember? So, it still needs to be converted to mp3. Who did “Wouldn’t It Be Beautiful”?
OMG!!
TAKE AWAY MY CARD AND MARYS…
WE FORGOT, WE FORGOT,
WE REALLY FORGOT……
THE ONE AND ONLY…..
ELVIS….
And, 2., the WHOS sang because they had been RIPPED OFF….NOT, because,
they thought they had been
RIPPED OFF…
LOVEANDKISSES
JIMMYDEAN
pART 3:
THE SONGS:
1. CHARLIEBROWN XMAS,where they are skating and that beautiful piano…
2.HOWTHEGRINCHSTOLE…,
where the town comes out in the snow to sing even thought they were RIPPED OFF….
3.RUDOLPH, the RED NOSE…
including BURL IVES singing…
4.patti labelle-
“o holy nite”
AND, the fab “WOULDN’T IT BE BEAUTIFUL”.. find this song.. it is so true even in todays times and world…
5.Whitney HOUStony… but i think it was her version of “O Holy Nite” too… ????they play it on the radio…
6. Barbra Striesand-
“My Favorite THings”
“THe Best Gift”
7.STEVE NICKS SINGING HER VERSION OF
“silent night.” the ultimate… find it….
8.the infamous GOLDSTAR xmas album, now on cd:
‘A CHRISTMAS GIFT FOR YOU’
from Phil Spector..
featuring DARLENE LOVE singing, “XMAS, BABY PLEASE COME HOME” AND THE
bEAUTIFUL boNOS… SONNY IS
the only one mentioned in the linear notes….
9. CHER SINGING
“it came upon a midnite clear/ONE TIN SOLDIER”
complete with cartoon video…
shame on you MaryElisabeth…
YOU GET A LUMP OF COAL…
AND YOUR BF GETS, GETS, GETS….
ME IN HIS STOCKING…
HAHA
TAKE THAT
🙂
LOVE AND KISSES
JIMMYDEAN
PART TWO:
So, here i am finally listening to 96.5FM koit from san francisco. xmas music until jan 2.
DRINKING RASPBERRY BEER…
it has a fizz like CHampagne..
AND,
DAMN IT…
MARY GOES AND SCREWS UP EVERYTHING….
shame on you for not listing THESE sad, sad,
beautiful x-mas songs:
PART THREE NEXT
JD
Mary,
let me add to the depression here:
I had to pay back a loan from work for school STAT… $1500… WHERE is the government for me, hun???
NOW, after going to a Chicropractor in good faith for help with my back and neck– i work in Nursing–
this is what happened in recent weeks:
they pressured me into a credit card to help pay for the exspence.. after the original $$$ agreement, an employee trying to take adavantage took over and added a 3 infront of the 6 it became
$3,600…after much talking…. it was a hassle to get that changed…and the employee is still there…they also said i had to pick up the extra charges to change it back…
then they injured me on the rolling table… sores on my spine…
NOW, today, i find out the credit card company has charged me almost $3000+interest and DR. Rose says she never received anything but $1175.26
NOW, i have to go thur the hassle of dispute and proof… AND, for the first time in my life MY
credit report is near perfect???? but probably not for long, HUN….
THEN, Wal-mart keeps one of my sacks tonite and i dont have yogurt or the cheese i need for my mexican dish????
PART TWO on next post
JD