What’s Your Christmas Soundtrack?

One day you’re walking through the shopping centre as normal, then the next day, WHAM!

Not just Wham, but Mariah Carey, Michael Buble and a host of others singing Christmas favourites. I think I first heard Christmas music playing as the soundtrack to my shopping experience back in late October this year.

For those who enjoy the music of the season, you’ve probably had a good couple of months of ever-increasing Christmas melodies ringing in your ears. For those who don’t, you won’t have to block your ears much longer.

I’ve got over five hundred Christmas songs on my iPod and they’ve been filling our home and car with Yuletide cheer … whatever that is … for weeks. Everyone from Michael Buble to Diana Krall, Bing Crosby, Run DMC, Barry White, The Wiggles, Guy Sebastian, Jimmy Barnes and even Russel Coight, along with many others, are singing about Christmas on our stereo.

What is your favourite Christmas music?

Do you have a favourite Christmas song? Do you have a favourite artist at Christmas time? Does Mariah Carey’s very successful Christmas album still get a spin at your place each December?

A few of my favourites.

I couldn’t possibly fit all my Christmas favourites in one post, but here is a handful.

I’m not a huge fan of the song Little Drummer Boy but I am a fan of both Bing Crosby and David Bowie so I love hearing their Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth medley around this time every year. The chat at the start of the video is cheesy and somewhat awkward but I just love it.

A new favourite this year is a reworking of the old Slade classic, Merry Christmas Everybody. Yes, I’ll admit it. I do enjoy a little Robbie Williams. I’m also a fan of Jamie Cullum so this combination is just joyful.

One of the strangest Christmas songs ever released has got to be this one by Bob Dylan. Bob is definitely a favourite of mine and so this one’s certainly worth a mention and a viewing. It seems that everyone in the video is having an amazing time, except Bob. It’s weird and wonderful.

This collaboration between Elvis Costello and Stephen Colbert is just wonderful.

I certainly feel that friends don’t let friends go through life without knowing about the great Gregory Porter, so I absolutely must include a song from one of the greatest voices of our time.

While I could go on forever with Christmas favourites, maybe I’ll finish off with this one from Diana Krall.

Let me know about your musical tastes around Christmas.



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Bing and Bowie 40 Years Later

I’ve got over four hundred Christmas songs on my iPod and they’ve been filling our home and my car with Yuletide cheer … whatever that is. Everyone from Michael Buble to Diana Krall, Bing Crosby, Run DMC, Barry White, The Wiggles, Guy Sebastian, Jimmy Barnes and even Russel Coight, along with many others, are singing about Christmas.

And Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without this song. It’s very much part of the soundtrack of my life. I’m not a huge fan of the song Little Drummer Boy but I am a fan of both Bing Crosby and David Bowie so I love hearing their Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth medley around this time every year. The chat at the start of the video is cheesy and somewhat awkward but I just love it.

Bing Crosby was my dad’s favourite singer and Bowie has always been a favourite of mine so to have the two of them combined has always been pretty special for me.

While the single wasn’t released until 1982, the video was shot in September 1977, just over 40 years ago, for Bing’s Christmas special. Unfortunately he never saw the special aired. Bing Crosby died of a heart attack in October 1977. Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas was broadcast on CBS in the United States on the 30th of November, 1977.

Little Drummer Boy was written back in 1941 with Peace on Earth written especially for this collaboration.

Do you have a favourite Christmas song? Do you have a favourite artist at Christmas time? Does Mariah Carey’s very successful Christmas album get a spin at your place each December?



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Soundtrack of My Life – Let’s Dance

Soundtrack of my Life Tomorrow would have been David Bowie’s 70th birthday but of course, he died on the 10th of January 2016, just days after his 69th birthday.

This is one of a regular series of articles highlighting some of the music that has played a part in my life.

You’ll find a range of songs from old to new. Whether it’s the lyrics, the music, a time in my life, or a combination of reasons, the songs in my soundtrack are part of who I am.

If you take a good look you’ll probably find music that has been part of the soundtrack of your life too. You can also check out some of the other songs that make up the soundtrack of my life.

So much has been said about the number of celebrities who died in 2016 and I was saddened by many of those deaths but Bowie’s death was the only one that really affected me. I pretty much listened to nothing but David Bowie music for days after hearing the news.

Let’s Dance – David Bowie

Let’s Dance was the title track to Bowie’s 1983 album and the first to be released as a single. It was the album that was the driving force behind the Serious Moonlight Tour. The only time I saw Bowie live was on that tour when he played the Perth Entertainment Centre in early November 1983.

I chose this track to share because of its links to Australia.

The music video was made in March 1983 by David Mallet on location in Australia including a bar in Carinda in New South Wales and the Warrumbungle National Park near Coonabarabran. In the beginning it featured Bowie with a double bass player inside the one-room pub at the Carinda Hotel and an Aboriginal couple ‘naturally’ dancing “to the song they’re playin’ on the radio”, the couple in this scene and in the whole video is played by Terry Roberts and Joelene King, two students from Sydney’s Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre. As Bowie opted for real people, some residents of the 194-souls village of Carinda are in the pub too, watching and mocking the couple. They do not believe who David is nor what the take is all about, hence their behaviour towards the couple as seen in the video is real.

The red shoes mentioned in the song’s lyrics appear in several contexts. The couple wanders solemnly through the outback with some other Aboriginals, when the young woman finds a pair of mystical red pumps on a desert mountain and instantly learns to dance. Bowie’s calling ‘put on your red shoes’ recalls Hans Christian Andersen’s tale “The Red Shoes”, in which the little girl was vainly tempted to wear the shoes only to find they could not be removed, separating her from God’s grace – “let’s dance for fear your grace should fall” “The red shoes are a found symbol. They are the simplicity of the capitalist society and sort of striving for success – black music is all about ‘Put on your red shoes'”, as Bowie confirmed.

Soon, the couple is visiting museums, enjoying candlelit dinners and casually dropping credit cards, drunk on modernity and consumerism. During a stroll through an arcade of shops, the couple spots the same pair of red pumps for sale in a window display, their personal key to joy and freedom. They toss away the magic kicks in revulsion, stomping them into the dust and return to the mountains, taking one final look at the city they’ve left behind.

Bowie described this video (and the video for his subsequent single, “China Girl”) as “very simple, very direct” statements against racism and oppression, but also a very direct statement about integration of one culture with another. He inserted numerous references to the Stolen Generations. For example, the scene where the young woman scrubs the street on her knees in the middle of a busy street refers to Aboriginal children that were trained as domestic servants before being sent to white homes. – Wiki

I’d encourage you to get involved too. Let me know about some of the songs that are etched in your mind. What are the tunes that bring back a flood of memories every time their opening notes start cranking out on your stereo? Are there songs you love for their music and others that speak deeply through their lyrics?



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Soundtrack of My Life – Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth

Soundtrack of my Life This is one of a regular series of articles highlighting some of the music that has played a part in my life. You’ll find a range of songs from old to new. Whether it’s the lyrics, the music, a time in my life, or a combination of reasons, the songs in my soundtrack are part of who I am.

If you take a good look you’ll probably find music that has been part of the soundtrack of your life too. You can also check out some of the other songs that make up the soundtrack of my life.

Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth – Bing Crosby and David Bowie

I’ve got a few hundred Christmas songs on my iPod and they’ve been filling our home and my car with Yuletide cheer … whatever that is. Everyone from Michael Buble to Diana Krall, Bing Crosby, Run DMC, Barry White, The Wiggles, Guy Sebastian, Jimmy Barnes and even Russel Coight, along with many others, are singing about Christmas.

And Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without today’s song. It’s very much part of the soundtrack of my life. I’m not a huge fan of the song Little Drummer Boy but I am a fan of both Bing Crosby and David Bowie so I love hearing their Little Drummer Boy / Peace On Earth medley around this time every year. The chat at the start of the video is cheesy and somewhat awkward but I just love it. Enjoy.

Bing Crosby was my dad’s favourite singer and Bowie is right up there for me so to have the two of them combined has always been pretty special for me. While Bing passed away back in 1977, this is the first Christmas without David Bowie so there’s something a little bit sadder about the song this year.


I’d encourage you to get involved too. Let me know about some of the songs that are etched in your mind. What are the tunes that bring back a flood of memories every time their opening notes start cranking out on your stereo? Are there songs you love for their music and others that speak deeply through their lyrics?

Do you have a favourite Christmas song? Do you have a favourite artist at Christmas time? Does Mariah Carey’s very successful Christmas album get a spin at your place each December?



Do you think some of your friends would enjoy reading Soundtrack of My Life – Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth? Please use the buttons below to share the post. Thanks.

Soundtrack of my Life – David Bowie

Soundtrack of my LifeThis is one of a regular series of articles highlighting some of the music that has played a part in my life.

You’ll find a range of songs from old to new. You’ll probably find music that has been part of the soundtrack of your life too.

You can also check out some of the other songs that make up the soundtrack of my life.

David Bowie

While my regular Soundtrack of my Life posts feature one song that means something to me, I can’t just choose one David Bowie song. Since I heard of his death several days ago I’ve had a couple of hundred of his songs playing over and over on my iPod. I think I’m almost at the place where I can start listening to other music again. Obviously I can’t include all his songs here so I’ll limit myself to three. Choosing those three will be hard enough.

So much has already been written about Bowie over many years and especially this past week so I won’t try to give any kind of comprehensive history of his career. I’ll just add a few of my personal reflections. I couldn’t possibly write all that Bowie’s music has meant to me over the years because different songs and albums have played their part in so many seasons in my life. Let’s just say that hearing that he had passed away was devastating for me, especially as he had kept his illness so quiet. It was so totally unexpected.

Bowie’s music and lyrics have resonated so strongly with me over so many years that mourning his loss was like mourning a close friend. He was no saint but he has played a significant part in my life through his music over several decades.

Space Oddity

The first song I recall from Bowie is Space Oddity. Released back in 1969, when I was just six years old. It charted in Australia when I was nine, in early 1973. It’s a fabulous track from an amazing album. There’s so much more to the Space Oddity album than the title track so make some time to check out the rest of the tracks.

I’ve collected quite a few Bowie albums over the years and while critics have praised some more than others, I love them all. Some thought that Bowie ‘sold out’ with his more commercially acceptable Let’s Dance album, but I reckon anything that would put his music in front of a wider audience was a good move. I was particularly pleased that the album sparked a world tour. The Serious Moonlight Tour came to Perth in November 1983. I was there at the Perth Entertainment Centre to see him perform a mixture of old and new material. What a show.

David Bowie never seemed to simply stage concerts; they were theatrical performances, each one featuring his latest creation. Bowie didn’t ‘reinvent himself’ as some suggest, he would instead create characters that he would inhabit. The stories from so many since his passing paint the picture of a private, caring man, that was so different to many of the characters we saw on stage throughout his career.

The Let’s Dance album and the Serious Moonlight Tour meant that Bowie was everywhere at the time. He was all over the TV, the radio and definitely on my turntable and in my car cassette player.

This is one of the biggest hits from the Let’s Dance album.

Modern Love

There are so many other songs and stories I could tell about Bowie, like the moment the clock struck midnight on the 1st of January 1984, throwing open the doors of my Ford Transit and blasting his song 1984 as loud as the stereo could handle it. I was at a youth camp and while most stayed inside for their new year’s celebrations, there was a small group pf us that felt that playing Bowie’s Orwell inspired song was the only way to ring in that year.

There was the time that I had to drive home from the country very late at night and playing the Black Tie White Noise album on repeat at fairly high decibels was the only thing keeping me awake on the road.

Yes, there are many, many other times when David Bowie provided the soundtrack to my life, but I’ll post one more song, and that is the soundtrack that plays behind the news of Bowie’s death. None of us knew that the album released just days earlier, on his 69th birthday, would be his parting gift to millions of fans around the world. It’s already been watched well over 20 million times on YouTube and no doubt will be played many more times in coming days, weeks and years.

Lazarus

Whether you’re a Bowie fan or not, his music has probably provided the soundtrack to some of your own life. I’d love to hear your recollections of David Bowie and his music. Please leave your memories and tributes in the comments section of this post.



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