Good evening, Kibitzers! I’m writing this Monday afternoon from my favorite pub, because my house has no internet today. You may recall this happens periodically, although not as often as a power outage. It’s annoying today because it’s a sloppy rainy day, although it could be worse — it could be freezing, in which case I would be home doing non-internet things.
Anyway, if they don’t get it fixed, I’m going to have to go to my office tomorrow, because it would be harder to get actual work done here at the pub than it is Daily Kos “work”. So, I’m keen to get this written and scheduled because I don’t really want to sit here all night (and I’m sure my waiter feels the same way. Thanks, Andrew!)
Most years, I post about my favorite, let’s say, winter holiday song that’s come to my attention during the year, and this seems like a good evening for that.
I wrote about Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox here only a couple of months ago. Wouldn’t you know, they have a Christmas playlist at their YouTube channel. (You can see their website here.) It’s a good playlist, although at the moment, it inexplicably contains I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas three times in a row. Granted, it’s the best cover of I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas I’ve heard, but it’s still rather excessive and you’ll probably want to skip ahead after the first one.
Here, though, are a few of my favorites from the list.
I like this jazzy young vocalist, Von Smith. He has a YouTube channel of his own, if you’d like to hear more from him.
Under ordinary circumstances, Baby, It’s Cold Outside is on my list of least liked/most rapey holiday songs. However, PMJB avoids most of the unpleasant implications of the lyrics by simply having only the woman, Ashley Stroud, sing. The man, Alex MacDonald, is limited to tap dancing his part. They both tap dance, to be clear, but only she also has words.
I’ll close with a gospel cover of O Holy Night by singer Miche Braden, who’s one of the singers I diaried about in October. What a voice she has!
So, Merry Christmas Happy Holidays, comrades! I may be late to this diary, depending on how the internet thing shakes out, but I’ll show up eventually...