Because it’s all about the kids when it comes down to it, right? One of my favorite covers of a Christmas classic.
Category: video
Categories
Sick of The Pseudodoors.
It’s been a while since I trolled young people, and settled well into cold winter I have precious few opportunities to chase off cheese-eating cretins who try to make a shortcut out of my yard. Indeed, our university is in winter break, so I can’t even hope to menace the drunken kids who stop by our hedgerow to take a leak.
It is from this perspective that I’m wondering: what the hell is a Lumineer, and why the fuck won’t they stay out of my music player feed? Now, lots of people rip on Millennials for lots of reasons, apt and not, and I don’t want to be that guy stirring up the generational stew. I know plenty of asshats my own age, but I need to know: am I the only one to come to the rather horrifying cultural realization that Generation X is the first demographic in modern history whose children are actually begging us to turn our goddamn music down? My own flesh and blood has, just recently, complained wearily she could hear the Wild Flag jams I was using to shake snow off the roof through her head phones, and it was spoiling her Edward Sharp moment. Sigh.
If I hear one more shoe-gazing, patchy-bearded twinky strumming another acoustic barbiturate ode to something really, really, really poignant I’m going to puke on his shoes.
I get it. These coffeehouse pseudo-troubadoors (Pseudodoors?) feel things nobody has ever felt, and they feel them profoundly, deeply. Really, really, really deeply. But give me a break, man.Those Wes Anderson characters aren’t templates. For the love of the gods, buy a Sonic Youth record and figure it out. You can me miserable, melancholic, even maudlin without being so damnably dull. Watch and learn:
If you kids ever wonder why we olden shits scoff at your Beeber and all that empty Disney crap, it’s because the music we played to make the double-hung windows shake was unimaginably awesome. You know nothing about the 1980s–Patti Labell and Duran Duran? I never once saw a girl wearing leg warmers on the street. Screw that.
Yes, I am that old guy shaking his fist at you and telling you to get out of my yard, but the Minutemen were the coolest band ever. Ever.
This is for you, Robin. But that doesn’t mean we can’t all enjoy it!
Well I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
Well it goes like this:
The fourth, the fifth, the minor fall and the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Well your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to her kitchen chair
And she broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
But baby I’ve been here before
I’ve seen this room and I’ve walked this floor
You know, I used to live alone before I knew ya
And I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Well there was a time when you let me know
What’s really going on below
But now you never show that to me do ya
But remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Maybe there’s a God above
But all I’ve ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya
And it’s not a cry that you hear at night
It’s not somebody who’s seen the light
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Every year, when the Christmas music is stowed away, I look forward to catching up with Steve & Edye’s holiday album, “That Holiday Feeling.” Until next season, guys….
Categories
Soundtrack To Then New Years Post
The Grandaddy of old Christmas videos…and the best-selling single of all time. Bing Crosby & Danny Kaye, with a special vocal surprise if you listen through to almost the end (around the 2 minute mark).
Yesterday I praised the Christmas crooners of previous generations, but we’ve had some good stuff of our own. This bitter, poignant winter tale touches on the melancholy undercurrent of the holiday so perfectly that it never fails to make my mom cry. Adding the sad epilogue, in which Kirsty MacColl was horribly killed on her Christmas vacation in Cozumel, Mexico (the wealthy perpetrator caught, but never prosectued) at the age of 41 and the peak of her career, and this is perhaps the most bittersweet–emphasis on sweet–Christmas song since “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.”
Categories
Tunesday: Weird Andy Williams
Nostalgic, but strange. I remember my mother and grandmother both filled with anticipation for the annual Andy Williams Christmas Special variety show.
