Welcome back! Thanks to everyone who left comments on yesterday’s post expressing interest in participating. I’m looking forward to reading your posts!
Today, I thought I’d offer you videos of songs released the year I was born and the years I turned 10, 20, 30, and 40.
Christmas 1974, “Lonely This Christmas,” Mud
I’ll be honest: I don’t think I’ve ever heard this song before, although I suppose if I had, I would have assumed it was Elvis singing it. Believe it or not, it spent four years atop the charts in the UK during December ’74–January ’75.
Christmas 1984, “You Make Me Feel like Christmas,” Neil Diamond
We were a Neil Diamond family when I was growing up, so this got a lot of airtime in our household. 1984 also marked the release of Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
Christmas 1994, “All I Want for Christmas Is You,” Mariah Carey
It’s so hard to believe this song didn’t come out until my junior year of college. One of the few modern Christmas classics, the song serves as the text of Carey’s new Christmas picture book and helped cement Carey’s place on the list of best-selling musicians of all-time.
Christmas 2004, “Believe,” Josh Groban
2004 was not a particularly good year for Christmas music, but included the release of the sweet animated film The Polar Express, based on one of my favorite Christmas picture books, and “Believe,” which won a Grammy Award.
Christmas 2014, “Text Me Merry Christmas,” Straight No Chaser featuring Kristen Bell
This song was written by frequent collaborators David Javerbaum, the comedy writer behind the Tweet of God Twitter account, and Adam Schlesinger, bassist for Fountains of Wayne.
Links to other holiday happenings on the web: