Dancing In The Snow (Christmas Music mix, 2021)

Books, comics, TV, music
1

dancingsnow2

Well Merry Christmas, or happy whatever-holiday-you-like for 2021! It’s been a long year, but we sure have come through quite a journey, right? Sure, we’re dealing with worries about the future, and especially Covid, and….wait.

Is this Christmas or Groundhog Day?

Yeah, yeah. I know it sucks to still be dealing with the same ol’ crap in a brand new year and whatnot. Welcome to living in interesting times, I guess. And I sense that among many households, Christmas is going to once again be a very low-key affair yet again, which stinks.

But it is the holidays. There’s a chill in the air. It’s snowing in places that desperately need snow. Everyone in our neighborhood has lights up outside. While standing in line at the bank last week, people were actually…friendly? December always has worked some wonders on the psyche.

And so that brings me to this year’s holiday music mix. I nearly went for something more somber downcast, given all the pain and sadness in the world right now. But then I realized that there’s always pain and sadness in the world, every December. And every other month in every other year, too. That’s what the world is, I’m afraid.

But if you’re willing to see it, there’s also so many reasons to be happy, thankful, and yeah, even a little joyful this December as well. And so given the choice of going for Sad Christmas songs or Happy, I decided to do a little bit of dancing in the snow, so to speak. Thus, this year’s mix is teeming with happy songs, both new and a few favorites from years gone by — including the return of the capper for Christmas mixes past, because why not.

And so here you’re gonna find David Newton and his newish band kicking things off. If you’re a Britpop fan, you may recognize his voice from The Mighty Lemon Drops, back in the day. Don’t trust the title of that Candypants song about Happiest Time and whatnot…but don’t worry, because the amazing voice of Grant Lee Phillips is there to bring the mood back pretty quickly.

And you all were supposed to make “Christmas With the Snow” a perennial holiday favorite when last I used it on a mix about 10 years ago. Yet somehow it languishes with fewer than 10,000 plays on Spotify. I know that song is A LOT to take the first time you hear it. But it’s never leaving your brain after that, and you’re gonna come back to it, and in no time it’s going to make you feel like Snoopy dancing.

We back it off a little after Lou Rawls’s joyous holiday track (note to self, I need to listen to more Lou Rawls in the new year). I mean, you can’t follow that exuberance, really. But we build it back up later (Otis is back!), continue the mood with that EXCEPTIONAL song by Blackbird, and finally take it home to a familiar finish.

I hope this season finds you well in spirit and mind. As usual, it’s one long connected MP3, sequenced and mixed for normalized volume. Be safe and mindful this winter! Get vaccinated, get boosted when you’re eligible, and be smart out there so we can all come back next December again!

Dancing in the Snow (2021 Music Mix, click to play in a new window, or right click, etc.)

Track list:

  1. Vale, Norm
  2. “Winter Tragedy” David Newton & Thee Mighty Angels
  3. “All The Gifts I Need” JD McPherson
  4. “The Happiest Time of the Year” Candypants
  5. “Winterglow” Grant Lee Phillips
  6. “Christmas With The Snow” Marah, feat. Felicia Navidad
  7. “Dancing in the Snow” The Leopards
  8. “Good Time Christmas” Lou Rawls
  9. “Yule Tide Me Over” The Minus 5 feat. Kelly Hogan
  10. “Hear the Bells” Calexico
  11. “Greensleeves” Vince Guaraldi Trio
  12. “Winter Goes Away” I Was A King
  13. “Lady December” The Concretes
  14. “Christmas Party” Dr. Dog
  15. “Merry Christmas, Baby” Otis Redding
  16. “Christmas Getaway” Blackbird
  17. “All I Want For Christmas” Pip Blom
  18. “She Whispers The Winter Snow” The Autumns
  19. “Cocktail for Christmas” India Ramey
  20. “Quartermaster’s Wintertime” Bill Fox
  21. The Boys of the NYPD Choir singin’ Galway Bay…
2

Great playlist. I spend some days listening to nothing but Vince Guaraldi, let alone during the holidays! 😀

Edit - Where’s the goddamn Tony Bennett (j/k)!?

3

Yessss, Christmas can finally begin properly! Thanks, triggercut!

4

Trigger is rewriting the mixtape rules! Cocktail for Christmas is the best. Thank you

5

Excellent list, thanks @triggercut

santa-santa-claus

6

Thanks. Any idea how I could play this list on my Alexa speaker? Every year I age I become more technologically inept. I long for the days when my PC had a built-in cup holder!

7

It’s here! The mix is here! AIGHHH!

And this playlist looks like a good’un.

Thank you for giving us one more thing to be joyful about in 2021, triggercut. Merry Christmas!

8

If you have an Echo, I think they can function as a bluetooth speaker so you could pair your phone with the Echo and then play the music from your phone, for example. I will probably be trying that option myself this evening.

9

Thanks. As always. You are the best!

10

Yaaaaaaaaaaay!

11

BTW, consider this my annual recommendation that if you’re looking for a single album on Spotify/Apple/Google Music to put on and forget, JD McPherson’s “Socks” album is just amazing.

12

I hope you don’t mind, but I imported this playlist into Spotify, as I have done for a few in past years. As usual, a couple songs weren’t available- this year it was the Leopards and Pip Blom. I actually thought that Marah song wasn’t on there, as the title didn’t come up in the search (though a different song of theirs with Felicia Navidad did) but since you called it out I dug deeper and found it.

Your mixes should keep me rocking in the kitchen for the next couple days. Thanks!

13

The girls are frosting cookies, my wife is making potato latkes for apps with friends later, I’m wrapping presents, and triggercut’s 2021 Christmas mix is blasting in eight rooms all through the house.

Love it, this year and always!

14

I wasn’t sure I’d have time to make a Christmas music mix this year, and then over the summer some friends from St. Louis were talking about this great Kansas City band from right around the time that new wave and punk were crossing the nation in the late 1970s – the Leopards. And yeah, they sound completely different from what you’d expect a band from Missouri in the late 1970s to sound like. It’s almost like a Muswell Hillbillies-era Kinks tribute band. And on their record of non-holiday music is “Dancing in the Snow”, and well, there you go.

Glad to hear the mix brought some cheer! Happy new year!