Bring On The Christmas Music!

Though Christmas comes but once a year, the plethora of Christmas songs that have been written over the years would lead one to believe that its a year-round event.

Whether the songs are from generations past, or new to the year at hand; whether they're traditional, or barely resemble a holiday tune, they're all out there, just waiting for someone to come along and have a listen.

Sometimes the old is meshed with the new, literally, and those old songs get a breath of life and return to the airwaves during the holidays.

A couple of great examples, (at least in my opinion), are "Baby It's Cold Outside", originally recorded by Dean Martin, and years later, re-released as a duet with country artist, Martina McBride; and Frank Sinatra's "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", updated as a duet with Cyndi Lauper.

Rather than being re-recordings of these songs, Martina and Cyndi's vocals were actually recorded, then blended with Martin's and Sinatra's original recordings.

It seems that every year I hear a new song, or version of a song, that catches my attention, and becomes a new favorite.  And each time I think, "I've never heard that before, it must be brand new", only to find out it *isn't* brand new at all; it's usually been out a few years, and I'm just hearing it for the first time.

The 2015 holiday season is no different for this happening to me.  In the past month I've heard two remakes of songs that I hadn't heard before; and each has actually been around a few years.

The first song is the John Lennon classic, "Happy Christmas".  While I've heard several versions of the tune, none have quite lived up to the original.  Then I heard Maroon 5 do the song, and wow!  Still maybe not quite as good as Lennon, but still the only other version I've liked well enough to want to hear again and again.

The second song is "Mele Kalikimaka", written by Robert Alex Anderson in 1949.

While there have been many versions of this song over the decades, my current favorite is by country artist, Jake Owen. Like with Maroon 5, Jake's rendition has been around for a while, and I'm just now hearing it.

Funny thing too, as a fan, I usually can recognize Jake's voice, but I didn't, and was surprised to hear the DJ on the radio say it was him.

With only a few more days until Christmas, I'm not sure I'll hear anything new  this season.  I look forward already to next year though, to see what treasures will be unearthed for my listening pleasure.