“You For Christmas” is the featured single and lead track on the reissue/deluxe edition of Kelly Clarkson’s 2021 holiday album When Christmas Comes Around…. The song, written by Clarkson, Andrew Wyatt and Mark Ronson, hit the #5 spot on the Adult Contemporary chart, and Clarkson performed it on the season finale of The Voice earlier this month.
The song begins in A and modulates up to B at 2:09.
Former American Idol contestant and youngest-ever EGOT winner Jennifer Hudson released her first holiday record this year, her first studio album since 2014. The Gift of Love features four original tunes and ten covers. “What better way to come back than a Christmas album?” Hudson said an interview. “It’s been a dream of mine my whole career. I’m a holiday fanatic … so it just makes sense.”
“Little Drummer Boy” begins in D and shifts up to Eb at 1:40.
Chris Butler, the songwriter and guitarist on The Waitresses’ cult classic “Christmas Wrapping,” (1981): “‘I was such a Scrooge. I hated Christmas! Also, I worked as a freelance journalist,” (The Guardian). “In December in New York, everyone with a job takes a long holiday, so I’d get offered work I was too poor to turn down. I’d have all this stuff to do when everyone else was having their eggnog. And I poured my sourness into this song. The first words I wrote down were: Bah humbug. The chorus went: Merry Christmas. But I think I’ll miss this one this year. It’s about two people alone at Christmas who meet while buying cranberry sauce, and get together. Of course, it had to have a happy ending – it’s Christmas! – but it was tongue in cheek. … I still get grumpy at Christmas. Every year, when I get stuck in traffic because of idiots buying crap for their unloved in-laws, that song always seems to come on the radio. And then I think: Lighten up, man, it’s Christmas.’”
Tracy Wormworth (bass and backing vocals): “‘At the time, Good Times by Chic was out; for bass players, Bernard Edwards’ badass bassline was iconic. I wasn’t trying to rip it off, but I was heavily inspired by it. I sat in the studio and worked out note for note what I would play. Like the band, the song is a real mix. I had no idea how catchy the song would prove to be. It would trip me out if I walked into a chain store and it was playing.”
After the second verse and second instrumental chorus (complete with its slightly off-kilter hook from the horns), a brief instrumental bridge shifts up a perfect fourth from 2:10 – 2:30. After reverting to the original key, the track’s bridge returns at 4:07 – 4:27 before a final extended chorus (this time with vocals proclaiming the hook!) wraps up the tune.
Delving into the track’s top-drawer bass line in wonderful detail is this video from bassist and music educator Paul Thompson:
The Alabama-based country vocal group Little Big Town released their first holiday album, The Christmas Record, earlier this year. “Evergreen” is one of five original tracks featured on the record. It begins in B, modulates to Db at 1:10, and again up to Eb at 2:30.
Kelly’s Heroes (1970) featured Clint Eastwood “and a rowdy gang of G.I. goofballs including roughneck Telly Savalas, new agey Donald Sutherland, bitter wiseass Don Rickles and young, harmonica-playing, exactly-the-same-looking Harry Dean Stanton (credited as Dean Stanton). It kinda feels like one of those fun ensemble war pictures like The Dirty Dozen or The Great Escape, except the idea behind it is much more cynical,” (OutlawVern.com). “Clint plays Kelly, a once great soldier, demoted and disillusioned after an incorrect order caused him to blow up some of his own men. When he finds out about a stash of gold bars in a German bank, he finally has a mission he can believe in again.
… The theme song ‘Burning Bridges’ (is) performed by The Mike Curb Congregation. Curb … scored The Wild Angels and The Born Losers … and was also the president of MGM Records. ‘Burning Bridges’ was the Congregation’s biggest hit (#1 in Australia!), though they also had some success with a version of ‘It’s a Small World’ from an album of Disney covers, (and) were featured on Sammy Davis Jr.’s version of ‘The Candy Man.’ … I thought the cornball vocals of ‘Burning Bridges’ added kind of a flower children-y touch to the movie, but I’m not sure Curb would like that characterization. In the same year Kelly’s Heroes came out, he made a splash by dumping The Velvet Underground and other groups from MGM because he thought they promoted drugs. In 1978, Curb was elected lieutenant governor of California, a Republican working under Jerry Brown. Still, the Congregation found time to record ‘Together, a New Beginning,’ the theme song for Ronald Reagan’s successful 1980 presidential campaign. So, not really the hippie I took him for.”
In Curb’s version, half-step key changes hit at 0:58 and 1:40. Keep scrolling for a mellower version (performed by Clint himself) which features an artier V/IV upward half-step shift at 1:55 and skips the second modulation of the original. Clint’s version wasn’t in the movie itself, but was also released as a single. Many thanks to our regular poster Rob P. for this submission!
“Eight Brown University students united by an undying love for all things groovy” is how Orange Guava Passion is described on Spotify. “Named after a juice offered in the Sharpe Refectory, Orange Guava Passion oozes Brown influence: youthfulness, idiosyncrasy and an aversion to the cardinal sin of taking oneself too seriously,” says a write-up in the Brown Daily Herald. “Their lyrics fill the bingo card of things stereotypical liberal arts college students enjoy, from Subarus to Trader Joe’s.”
“Eagletown,” released in 2020, is one of the group’s three singles. The track begins in F and shifts up to G at 3:16. There is a final modulation up to A at 3:49.
The musical theater cover band Third Reprise released their arrangement of “Defying Gravity” from the musical blockbuster Wicked earlier this year. Featuring vocalist Amanda Barise, the tune is filled with reharmonizations and set to a funk groove that provides a sharp contrast to the original. A film adaption of Schwartz’s musical opens in theaters tomorrow.
The track begins in Db major and modulates down a half step to C near the end at 3:39.
“Heartbeat” is the third track on the 2022 album Heroes by The Midnight, an Atlanta-based indie/synthwave band. The group, founded by singer-songwriter Tyler Lyle and producer Tim McEwan, has been active since 2012 and released five studio albums.
The track starts in B and shifts up a step to Db at 2:45.
“In 1965, We Five was near the top of the charts, with a great tune, ‘You Were On My Mind’ … I’d rate it among the best songs of the 60s,” (Brad’s All-Vinyl Finds). ” The band had a few other minor hits, but nothing else like this … (Lead singer Bev) Bivens’ voice starts out rather quietly; then there is the signature strum … Folk-rock was about to begin.
… singing the song took everything (the band) had. The released version … is take 13, with an earlier take of the shout-out-loud ending vocals spliced on from an earlier, less fatigued take … Today’s bands can multitrack and digitize their way to an essentially perfect song. But in 1965, We Five keep singing it until they exhausted themselves. They performed.“
After a start in E major, the tune shifts up a whole step to F# major at 1:25. Originally written by Sylvia Fricker and perfomed by her duo, Ian + Sylvia, in 1961, the tune was subsequently covered several times by artists in several countries. But We Five’s version was by far the most prominent version of the tune, hitting #3 on the Hot 100 chart and reaching #4 on Billboard’s year-end list of 1965’s best songs.
Many thanks to Paul G. for reminding us about this distinctive tune!
“Daughter of one of the most important female singers of the bossa nova (Sylvia Telles), Claudia Telles recorded for the first time in 1976 (the ballad “Fim de Tarde” by Robson Jorge/Maura Motta), which scored a hit,” (AllMusic). “After recording other singles, she recorded her first LP, Claudia Telles, in 1977. Along with her bossa nova interpretations (covering her mother’s hits), she also dedicated a CD to the samba masters Cartola and Nelson Cavaquinho.
She passed away due to complications from endocarditis at age 62 in 2020. “‘Each of the fans who made her career, her life the way it was: she had immense affection for each one of you’, said Bruno Telles, the singer’s son, to the newspaper O Dia.” (uol.com).
Built primarily in A major, 1978’s “Eu Preciso Te Esquecer” (I Need to Forget You) features a late downward key change to Ab major (3:32 – 3:47) before reverting to the original key. Many thanks to our Brazilian reader and contributor Julianna A. for this submission!
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