Brian Brian Kelley, Christian Beach, holiday, links, Music, video, YouTube

Christmas 2013 YouTube Video Playlist

A compilation of some of my favorite songs celebrating Christmas and the holiday season, in general. The playlist starts with the latest “demo” version of a Christmas song I originally wrote in 2011, “It’s Christmas Time Again.” Enjoy…

Christmas 2013 YouTube Video Playlist

Includes:

  • “It’s Christmas Time Again” – Brian Kelley
  • “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – Darlene Love
  • “Christmas Time is Here” – Vince Guaraldi Trio
  • “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” – John Lennon
  • “Thanks for Christmas” – Three Wise Men (aka XTC)
  • “The Closing of the Year” – Wendy & Lisa
  • “Fairytale of New York” – The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl
  • “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” – Band Aid (1984)
  • “3 Ships” – Jon Anderson
  • “This is Christmas” – Curt Smith
  • “Never Gonna Be Alone on Christmas” – Work Drugs
  • “Holiday Face” – Dent May
  • “Christmas Must Be Tonight” – Christian Beach (The Band cover)
  • “Holiday” – Mike Doughty with Rosanne Cash
  • “Little Drummer Boy” – Nicole Atkins
  • “Skating” – Vince Guaraldi Trio
  • “Matches for Sale/Say What?” – GrooveLily

 

Brian Brian Kelley, holiday, links, Music

Enjoy the latest version of my Christmas song

32352_850957667094_1010370090_nI originally wrote this Christmas song in 2011 and recorded what is essentially a “demo” version with GarageBand on my MacBook. I updated it for 2012 and made some more changes this year. Here is the latest version.

It’s Christmas Time Again – Brian Kelley

© 2011 Brian J. Kelley. All rights reserved.

I had always wanted to write a Christmas song and I obviously plucked inspiration from “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” (especially since I’m a huge Midge Ure fan), The Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping”, Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” and others. Yes, it includes many of the clichés you are familiar with from other Christmas songs. And when you think about it, most Christmas songs do tend to ask for quite a lot (peace on Earth, snow on Christmas Day, happiness for every boy and girl, etc.), so I refer to that with the line “well, it may be a daunting task/and an awful lot to ask.” But the whole nature of the holiday is this belief in Christmas dreams or miracles coming true, so why not ask for a lot?

Enjoy.

Brian Brian Kelley, Christian Beach, holiday, links, Music

My attempt at a Christmas song

As an amateur songwriter*, I’ve always wanted to write a Christmas song. And since Christmas songs are usually filled with clichés and my songs seem to always have their fair share of them, I probably should have been able to write one prior to last year.

Anyway, “It’s Christmas Time Again” was originally written and recorded on my MacBook (with GarageBand) in late 2011. I posted it to Facebook, where it received some positive comments. I recently updated it a bit and uploaded it to Soundcloud. And, yes, it is obviously influenced by Christmas songs from the late 1970s and 1980s, including a nod to “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” with the closing segment. But I’m a huge Midge Ure fan and never feel he gets enough credit for his role as the primary writer of that song, so that’s my tip of the hat to Midge.

Since it’s now officially the 2012 Christmas season, here is my Christmas song…

It’s Christmas Time Again – Brian Kelley
©2011 Brian J. Kelley

(* While I really am an amateur songwriter, I always have to remind myself that my friend Christian Beach used lyrics I wrote for a song we worked on during our techno-industrial days in the early 1990s as the chorus for “What Does It Mean to You?” by his mid-1990s band Slave of Id. That song did receive a fair amount of airplay on WHTG 106.3 FM in New Jersey in 1993/94. So, thanks to Christian, I have been able to enjoy hearing lyrics I’ve written on the radio…and that’s pretty cool. I think that’s why my favorite scene in the movie That Thing You Do is when all the band members—The Oneders!—and Liv Tyler’s character get excited about hearing their song on the radio. I can totally relate to that.)