To get your pre-Christmas week started right, I put together a playlist of seldom played, (mostly) non-traditional Christmas songs to counter all the usual stuff you’re hearing at the mall, in your car, on TV, and in your offices/homes. Enjoy roughly 40 minutes of cool Yuletide tunes.
“Main Title” – John Debney
2003. M and I sing the “Bop-bop bop-bop-bop” line at each other often.
“Sleigh Ride” – The Ventures
1965. The entire Ventures Christmas album is a treasure.
“Hey Santa Claus” – The Moonglows
1953. The background music for the Christmas Vacation shopping scene, right before Clark goes blousing, err, browsing.
“We Wish You A Merry Christmas” – Booker T. & the M.G.’s
1966. Right in their classic Venn diagram of soul, jazz, and easy listening.
“Back Door Santa” – Clarence Carter.
1969. I think you will recognize the horn lines from this song.
“The Nutcracker Suite” – Les Brown and His Band of Renown
The original version of this was from the late Fifties, this was re-mastered in 1996.
“Everyday Will Be Like A Holiday” – William Bell
1967. An Irish magazine called this the greatest Christmas song ever. That may be overstating things a little, but it is pretty great, and wildly unappreciated. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard it on the radio/SiriusXM.
“Let’s Get It Together This Christmas” – The Harvey Averne Band
1971. “Up With People” for Christmas? If you know anything about music history you should be able to pretty easily identify this song as coming from somewhere between 1968 and 1972.
“Don’t Believe in Christmas” – The Sonics
1965. This song is amazing and needs to be at least a minute longer.
“A Child’s Christmas In Wales” – John Cale
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote a piece with this title in 1952. Cale used it as inspiration for this 1973 track.
“Mr. Santa Claus” – Nathaniel Mayer
1962. Definitely not your traditional Christmas song.
“White Christmas” – Charlie Parker
As with many jazz albums, it’s tough to pin down the date of this original recording. I would guess 1948 based on some light research. This version was released in 1994.
“Joy To The World” – The Staple Singers
1962. Just beautiful. Mavis would sing the theme for Christmas Vacation 27 years later.