Happy Xmas (War Is Over!) - Take III

Maroon 5 takes on the holiday classic.

Happy Xmas (War Is Over!) on Ukelele

Happy Xmas (War Is Over!) - Part I

In honor of John Lennon, today's featured tune - several versions of it - will be "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)," released by John and Yoko in 1971 (or was it 1970?).

We begin with The Cranes.

John Lennon

Like hundreds of thousands of other people, I remember exactly where I was when I heard that John Lennon had been murdered, because I was watching Monday Night Football when Howard Cosell broke into the telecast to make the announcement. Of course it was a huge shock, but Lennon was not an artist that I’d thought about for a long time. Unlike his fellow Beatles, Lennon had decided to drop off the face of the Earth for five years, upon being reunited with Yoko and celebrating the birth of his son Sean. And in the years leading up to that joyous occasion, Lennon had set something of a record for embarrassing public drunkenness, going on what he referred to later as an 18-month bender which featured such highlights as getting thrown out of the Troubador one night after putting a Kotex on his head. Hardly the stuff of which legends are made.

Like all The Beatles, Lennon’s solo career was maddeningly inconsistent. He was capable of greatness, and he was capable of pure dreck. And most astonishingly, he was capable of perfectly adequate, mediocre music – something that he’d never been accused of as the leader of the fab four. Listen today to something like “#9 Dream,” and your first thought is “yeah, that’s pretty cool, that sounds good.” But then you remember you’re listening to the same guy who just 4 years earlier had sung “I Want You (She’s So Heavy),” as vital a piece of music as has ever been recorded during the rock era, and all you can think is “what the hell happened?”

And of course, the comparison is patently unfair. Because as Robert Christgau once wrote, John Lennon’s greatest accomplishment was The Beatles. And make no bones about it, John Lennon was the leader of The Beatles. And that is in no way intended as a slight to the remaining Fab Three. Paul McCartney was a magnificent collaborator, and fully capable of greatness on his own. George Harrison was a great lead guitarist. And Ringo Starr, while not Keith Moon or Charlie Watts, deserves his place in the pantheon of great rock and roll drummers. But it was Lennon’s wit, and Lennon’s audacity, that made all the difference. He was the straw that stirred the drink.

And John Lennon was smart enough to know that what he had with The Beatles was something special. He was never going to top what he had accomplished as the leader of the greatest band of the rock era. So he cleaned himself up, he reunited with the love of his life, and he dropped out of the public eye so he could take care of his young son. And then, while on vacation in the summer of 1980, he went into a club and heard The B-52s, and in a spasm of excitement, immediately realized that the sounds they were making represented exactly the kind of music that Yoko had been wanting to make for years. And so he went back to the studio, recorded new (and outstanding) songs of his own, but primarily to make her the star he always thought she should be.

And then, on the night of December 8, 1980, Lennon heard, in the words of a great essay penned by Jay Cocks for TIME magazine after the murder, “a voice out of the American night.” He turned, and he was cut down.

No one can know what would have happened, had Lennon not died on that night. It would have been nice to find out. After all, Bob Dylan went 22 years between masterpieces, and I like to think that John Lennon could have done the same thing. Everyone who cares about music – even a little bit – should be missing John Lennon today.

Hey, It's All About Priorities

A great story about an argument at Christmastime - one that involves the great Warren Zevon.

Over at A Lucky Dog Life.

Infamy

A nice post from Sheila that includes some fascinating information on the subtle - but critical - changes that President Roosevelt made to the speech he delivered to Congress following the attack on Pearl Harbor.

"Little Drummer Boy"

Jars of Clay is a Christian rock band out of Nashville, Tennessee. It's not a genre I normally go for, but this is the Christmas season, after all - and wouldn't you expect a Christian rock band to do a good job with Christmas songs?

Here, the band takes on "The Little Drummer Boy," and turns in a nice performance.

Don Meredith R.I.P.

For anyone who grew up watching football in the late 1960s and the 1970s, Don Meredith was a key figure - first as the quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, but later (and more importantly) as one of the first announcers on ABC's Monday Night Football broadcasts.

He was a very good but not great quarterback, and he certainly was not a great announcer. But he was a great personality. The first Monday night play-by-play man, Keith Jackson, once famously referred to it as "corn pone and bullshit," and even though Jackson (truly a great, great play-by-play man) did not intend the comment as a compliment, he was pretty much spot on. When Meredith and Howard Cosell almost immediately developed a chemistry that has rarely been seen in the booth (the dumb country boy and the city intellectual), it was apparent that Jackson was the odd man out. That was a good thing for Jackson, who went back to college football and became the greatest announcer ever of the college gridiron. ABC added another jock to the mix, USC and New York legend Frank Gifford, and for a couple of years the trio could do nothing wrong. It was the one of the golden eras of the NFL, and the Monday night ratings went through the roof, no matter who was playing.

Maybe it was inevitable, but after a couple of years it appeared that success went to Meredith's head. He moved over to NBC, where in addition to being paired on NFL broadcasts with Curt Gowdy (who by that time was far past his prime, and the team never really clicked) he was allowed to test out his limited acting chops, most notably in a recurring role on Police Story. What became obvious when Meredith was part of a crew that was actually interested in calling a game was that the game was slowly passing him by, and that he was never that good with the analysis or the details in the first place.

He went back to ABC for another 7 years on the MNF crew, and after that, he pretty much dropped off the face of the earth. But he always seemed like a nice guy, and he was a genuinely funny guy. And after all, MNF did revolutionize the sport - or at least the television coverage of it.

R.I.P.

That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!

I'm on record as being a huge fan of Sufjan Stevens' five-disc Christmas collection, the songs on which were recorded for friends and given as Christmas presents.

Some of the songs are traditional, some are original, some are joyous, and some are...well, not.

This one falls into the latter category, but it's a wonderful song.

Sufjan Stevens, with a live performance of "That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!"

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

Everywhere you go.

Harry Tackles a Classic

Harry Connick, Jr. has released three Christmas albums, and before his career is over I suspect we'll be over half a dozen. He's a talented, charismatic guy, and very likable to boot - in short, perfect for the holidays.

Catching Up

So, after a week of being away for work, the old Google Reader was up to over 200 posts. Not surprisingly, one of the best comes from Joe Posnanski, who dissects the soap opera that is the Miami Heat.

As Joe puts it,

"...and, in the end, who beside for some people in Miami will care about a pretty good, star-laden, self-indulgent NBA team that plays boring basketball? There are so many star-laden NBA teams that play wonderful basketball. If I were one of those poor shleps forced to follow around this Heat team, I'd beg to be reassigned to Oklahoma City."

Read the whole thing.

Yeah It's Dumb, But I Still Like It

Alvin and the Chipmunks get merry.

Going Viral for Christmas

This one seems to have caught on like wildfire, and it's too cool not to include in this year's calendar.

O Christmas Tree - Bill Susman Trio

A bit of mellow jazz for the holidays.

Kicking Off the Musical Advent Calendar 2010

And so it begins...the 3rd (or 4th) annual Musical Advent Calendar! Today we kick off the festivities with a little British pop from the great British pop band, Pet Shop Boys, with "It Doesn't Often Snow at Christmas."

And now it can be safely said...Happy Holidays!