'TIS THE SEASON FOR SOCIALLY DISTANT CHRISTMAS CAROLS! In the third volume of A Very Daly Christmas, the brothers Ryan and Neil share another set of favorite holiday songs, along with stories of opening giant G.I. Joes on Christmas morning and reflecting on Christmases past and future without the ones we love. Also, some favorite Christmas cartoon specials and shoutouts to listener-suggested songs.
Track list
- “Waiting for Christmas” by John Legend
- “Christmas Time is Here Again" by The Flirtations
- “World of Love" by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings
- “All Alone on Christmas" by Darlene Love & The E Street Band
- “O Holy Night" by Aaron Neville
- “Silent Night" by Taylor Swift
- “I Don't Intend to Spend Christmas Without You" by Claudine Longet
- "Naughty and Nice" by The Dino Martinis
- "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by The Temptations
- "Mr. Heatmiser" by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
- "What Are You Doing New Years Eve" by Ledisi
- "Baby, It's Cold Outside" by Idina Menzel featuring Michael Buble
Additional material from: "Winter Wonderland" GAP commercial by Janelle Monae; A Garfield Christmas; A Charlie Brown Christmas.
Let us know what you think! Leave a comment or send an email to: RDalyPodcast@gmail.com.
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Hey, Neil bugged onto the Dino Martinis!
There IS a Santa Claus!
Playing a wedding near you. Or me, actually. A great experiential band.
Why 3 years between episodes?
As you know, i love the hell out of the music shows. This is an instant classic and i hope you do more like this.
My xmas suggestions for rearranged songs: Hark! by The Fab Four — Christmas classics set to Beatles’ song arrangements!
Also, the Smithereens did a great Xmas album that’s overlooked and underplayed.
And this is my 2020 Christmas song winner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5h7oXS5jA0
I love that Mandy Moore / Mike Viola combo!
I’m in a very “Fuck Xmas” place this year, and not in a Mr. Garrison way. I bought folks presents and I guess I’ll get a few. Most will likely be passed between my father and I like a drug deal or the selling of government secrets as we sit outside, 6-10 feet apart while wearing masks, in a courtyard on neutral ground, hoping neither of us gets the other deathly ill. Literally, deathly ill.
I thought Claudine Longet was a surprising and offbeat selection, but not as surprising as hearing that I’d suggested it. I did? *Checks year-old comments.* Huh! How’dya like that? And over Dolly Parton even? Scandalous. Still no Elvis, boys? The Lord’s watching you know, as well as The King.
Less in the spirit of the season and more in the spirit of my usual pedantry, how about some “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me” by Diana Ross & the Supremes, since you fellas seemed to have a tingle-tingle for Diana Ross-types this year? On the novelty tip, “Nuttin’ for Christmas” by Art Mooney and His Orchestra featured a young Barry Gordon, future voice of Donatello (this box has Kyle’s name on it.) In a tip of the Stetson hat to Neil’s country tastes and my own home in the Robert Earl Keen’s “Merry Christmas From The Family.” While I’m pimping Texans, how about Pentatonix’s “Coventry Carol”? I’ll have surely forgotten all of these options by next week, so if I hear my name read again in 2021, it’ll be like I sent myself a present from the past into the future. Have they impeached Joe Biden already? Jesus Fucking Christ.
I love these episodes. Always a highlight of my year.
Here’s another song for Ryan’s list. “Santa Stole My Lady.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iI6SjsTjwXU
Also, Ryan including Aaron Neville in his list made me keep thinking of Aaron Neville and Ernie singing “I Don’t Want to Live on the Moon” as a duet on Sesame Street. But I guess that’s not very Christmas-y.
And God bless both of you for not only bringing up the “Baby It’s Cold Outside” discussion but for also including the Lady Gaga/Joseph Gordon-Levitt version (a personal favorite, FYI, and it was The Muppet’s Holiday Spectacular special where you probably saw it, Ryan).
It’s funny. I do think the media scrutiny of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” took things to an Andrea Dworkin extreme, except that as with Dworkin, the media narrative was a bastardization of the original intent. Dworkin once wrote “violation is a synonym for intercourse,” which was later misinterpreted and misattributed as “all heterosexual sex is rape.” Arguably, the quote that she was most famous for uttering wasn’t something she ever said and at worst vaguely implied, and I fully believe that was intentional.
My natural inclination was to just agree with Neil that the song wasn’t about rape, and that things had indeed become ridiculously contentious, but he kept arguing his point until I stopped agreeing with him. See, the song isn’t about Rohypnol, but it is unquestionably about coercion. The female part clearly, vocally, definitely declines to stay– repeatedly– almost incessantly. The entire song is about her saying “no,” with whether or not she finally relents being in question. A common refrain of the 20th century was that “no means yes,” that all ladies want a fellow, and if you’re just persuasive or determined enough, you can sell her own yourself. It’s a toxic mindset, and whether or not it was a social more of the time, even whether or not it’s a game the woman in a given case wants to see the man “win,” it’s still ultimately an argument in favor of being a sex pest. Four heterosexual white males (counting Clinton with us in the comments) all agree that it’s a fun, coy, sexy song that’s part of our holiday traditions. But if you’re a lady working in an office piping in Sunny 99.1 and a Christmas song comes on that reminds you of the time you agreed to unwanted sex because you’d had too much to drink and got badgered into it, maybe not so jolly. More so if you never agreed, and then still got sexually assaulted, and now you’re hearing a cultural touchstone that argues that you were just being coy and things ended the way they were suppose to have.
I’m not someone who believes in child-proofing the world and putting trigger warnings on everything, but it’s not exactly in the holiday spirit to rub people’s noses in the nuances of sexual harassment in between flying reindeer and odes to baby Jesus. Also, the media loves a good scandal. I think that we’d all agree that the Me Too Movement is important and necessary, but also, every article debating “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” blames the hubbub on a social environment created by that movement (not, y’know, all the raping.) So now the narrative becomes about how the feminists have gone too far and are trying to take a holiday classic away from us. Women will even turn on one another over a goddamned moldy oldie. So Neil devotes the majority of the back end of the podcast to “defending” a song the probably most people are untroubled by, but also gets to contribute to a chilling effect over actual necessary dialogue against societal change. Very smart people figure out how to do things like this to insure that nothing ever changes for the better, and dying on a hill for a bullshit number from 1949 is in service to their goals, not a defense of some hoary chestnut.
So I guess the short version is just shut up and play the song if you want to, but it’s only a political statement if you insist on making it so, and not necessarily the one that you had in mind.
Merry Christmas Daly family! I enjoyed this episode so much. I was the youngest in the family and my older brothers complained how I got all the best toys that they didn’t get because my parents didn’t have as much money when they were kids. I learned about so many new Christmas songs from this episode which I will add to my playlist. Thank you thank you!
If I might make one request, to have another Daly music episode to discuss music to listen to in January when it gets depressing after the holidays. Hope all is well and Merry Christmas y-all!
Another great Christmas episode. I’d done one myself yeeeears ago and it’s great to hear people’s selections other than the songs that are in my usual rotation. Of course, my “usual rotation” is a few hundred songs of various genres on my iPod. I have even made a “Christmas Playlists” folder so that I have easy access to everything come December.
And btw, Spotify has opened up a whole new world of Christmas music, especially instrumental jazz versions. Cozy Christmas Jazz? Cocktail Christmas Jazz? I’ll take it.
I liked most of the selections you had here and since I know you take suggestions for next year, here are five that haven’t been covered yet (with an honorable mention to that awful Dan Fogelberg song about meeting an old lover in the frozen foods section of the supermarket, only because I would love to hear your take on it).
The Carpenters, “Merry Christmas, Darling”. How the two of you have gone three years and not even mentioned The Carpenters’ “Christmas Portrait” album is a travesty.
Lou Rawls, “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town”. I could have picked a number of Lou Rawls songs. His Christmas album is a standard in our house. This version is great and is up there with the one by The Crystals on the Phil Spector album (and is even better than The Boss’ version).
Donny Hathaway, “This Christmas”. No real commentary here; just another must listen every year.
Gordon Lightfoot, “Song for a Winter’s Night”. This is one of those “it’s not about Christmas but reminds me of Christmas” songs. A romantic, literal “sit by the fire” song. Sarah McLachlan also did an outstanding version of this.
Fortunate Ones, “This Empty Street”. This is a folk-pop band from Newfoundland that released a Christmas EP a few years ago called “All Will Be Well.” The entire EP is worth it (well, except for an unnecessary cover of “Last Christmas”) and this song is one of the standouts. It’s a quiet, intimate song about two people in love walking around on Christmas Eve with nobody around and is a reminder of why Christmas Eve night is one of my favorite parts of the entire yuletide season. [And on a side note, I’d check out their music as a whole].
Merry Christmas!
Listening now, and digging the Yule out of it, as usual.
Just a few thoughts:
Darlene Love has a great part in The Christmas Chronicles 2 on Netflix. I don’t know how the cameras didn’t melt with her and Kurt Russell in the same frame. Just too much cool in one place.
All props to Aaron Neville, but I’m with Neil. I can’t get past his signature sound. It’s more due to an old co-worker than any professional comedian. This guy I worked with HATED Aaron Neville, because he sang/narrated some kids CD/Video his kid constantly watched, and his impersonation was spot on, if not exaggerated, ever so slightly.
More later.
I totally agree with Neil on “Baby It’s Cold Outside”. I’m all for Me Too, as well, but this shouldn’t be part of it. I appreciate the clarification on its origins in particular. John Legend has an “apologetic” version that gets played a lot on Sirus’ “Holly” station. It’s not bad, but unnecessary.
I don’t remember what I mentioned last year, but I’ve been digging a lot of Frank Sinatra this season. Particularly “Mistletoe and Holly” and “The Christmas Waltz”. Also, the Phil Spector Christmas album has been getting a lot of play. I don’t care for Spector the person, but the music is undeniably fantastic.
Oh, and that Garfield Christmas special chokes us up every time. Cindy got verklempt talking about it on an old Super Mates episode several years back!
Chris
Wow, what did Phil Spector ever do? …oh, wait…
Another great holiday tradition! This show is excellent and you guys picked some real gems. I’m a big fan of all the Motown (and Motown sounding) songs! The Garfield pick really broke me (as it does every year I watch the special) for all the reasons Ryan pointed out.
And I really enjoyed the Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s version of Mr. Heatmiser. I know of the song but I don’t think I’ve ever heard this version so I’m glad I know of it now.
I find with a lot of my Christmas favourites, there is a lot of nostalgia tied to the song. Most of them are songs that I listened to as a kid when my parents had the radio on so those are generally my favourites. I’m trying to get out of rut and try to listen to newer (or at least different versions of) songs so it was great to hear these tunes! One of the newer albums that I have enjoyed is Kelly Clarkson’s Wrapped in Red. I’m not sure if you’ve heard any of it but I thought it was really well done.
Well done and keep up the great work!
Haha! Almost chose Kelly’s “Underneath the Tree” for this episode too! Maybe next year
I was thinking how I’d love to have some recommendation picked up for next year’s episode , but I’m not as immersed in Christmas as you freaks. But just yesterday my wife and I were streaming an Aussie Christmas mix and this absolute banger came on…
Hello, I know Im late, by at least 1 month, but I just got around to listening to this episode(1/24/2021). I have to say I’ve heard a version of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” that part of a scene in a movie, I don’t know which movie, that had two couples, in different places, singing this song. One of the stars was Red Skelton, and in his section he and his female companion switch rolls, although it is at his place, she is trying to get him to stay, and Red Skelton gets switched around which is typical for him. I was also wondering if you’ve heard of The Manhatten Transfer, an accapella group of jazz singers from the 50’s and 60s. Any Accapella group currently active also have at least 1 christmas album. Thanks, Matthias McBride
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpDLpz88V-I
Red Skelton