Essential X-mas Music The Rest

Apologies for phoning it in, I just go so busy. Here's the last 8 tracks for the essential x-mas music mix. I hope it brightens your holiday season.

18. Blue Christmas- Elvis Presley
19. Run, Run, Rudolph- Chuck Berry
20. It's Christmas All Over Again- Tom Petty
21. Swiss Colony Beef Log- Eric Cartmen
22. Linus and Lucy- Vince Guaraldi
23. Christmas- The Who
24. Santa Baby- Madonna
25. Christmas Time In Hell- Satan (from the South Park x-mas)

Happy holidays to all. I hope you enjoyed this little list, despite my flaking on it.

Essential X-mas Music Track 17

"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" by The Pretenders

In the interest of full disclosure: this is actually my second favorite version of this song. I include it over my favorite because it will be easier to put on a cd (for those of you actually making a Ryan McGillen Essential Christmas Music Mix)

My favorite version is this one. It's been mentioned previously in this blog.

Essential X-mas Music Track 16

"I Won't Be Home For Christmas" by Blink 182.

A funny thing occurred to me the other day. I remember in high school/early college there was a trend of "punks" in my scene (as I'm sure there was in yours) would criticize Blink 182. "Sellout!" they would cry because they had gotten popular to the point where they had to play larger venues in order to service their audience. Most of these people loved pop punk bands like Screeching Weasel and The Descendants (both bands that heavily influenced Blink) but claimed to hate Blink.

Cut to those same people in 2009. Most of them are 25-30 years old. Lots of things have changed. Including the fact that they are now comfortable enough to admit they like Blink. Everyone likes Blink. Everyone. (no need to comment just to tell me you don't, i know it's a broad generalization).

Anyhow, hearing this song always makes me think of my first band ever, Kindergarden Diplomacy. The band included John McCabe, Leann Banks, Kevin Branoff, and myself. We'd play the silly songs that I wrote about a girl I worked with at Meijer who had a mullet or having carnal relations with farm animals. We would have band practice at John's house, using his other bands (much nicer) equipment. Afterwards, they would come and practice and since the holidays were approaching, they would cover this song.

Simpler times, those were.

Essential X-mas Music Track 15

"The Little Drummer Boy/Peace On Earth" by Bing Crosby and David Bowie

You learn something new every day.

We all know the tale of the retooling of this song because Bowie did not believe that his part was right for his voice. It's been told to death.

But today, I learned that one month after recording this song with Bowie, Bing Crosby died of a heart attack. That's my pop culture nugget for today. I'm sure it'll pop up in some improv show I do somewhere down the line. They all do.

Essential X-mas Music Track 14

"Happy X-mas (War Is Over)" by John Lennon.

I don't have to tell you that John Lennon is a genius. I don't have to tell you that this song, originally intended to be a protest song for the Vietnam War, is now a staple of any non-crazy person's holiday playlist.

You knew all of that.

Unfortunately, that's all there is to this song. It's simply amazing.

Essential X-mas Music Tracks 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13

So I'm cheating because I fell behind. Things got busy for me at work and at life and I simply had no spare time to do this. I'm giving you 4 songs that I didn't really have a whole lot to say about in list format. Two of them are the promised repeats from earlier entries.

#9 All I Want For Christmas Is You - My Chemical Romance

#10 Jingle Bell Rock - Hall and Oates

#11 Christmas Time in Hollis Queens - Run DMC

#12 Santa Baby - Cynthia Basinet (Thanks to WTD Records for the correction)

#13 Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys

Sorry to not go the extra mile on this one. I'll try to keep up for the rest of the season

According to the ingredients on the container, somewhere in the world there is pudding that just grows out of the earth.