Bob Dorough with Miles Davis Sextet - Blue Xmas (To Whom It May Concern)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

[2naSalit]

1. I play this every day as my favorite christmas song

from when the LDS owned radio station starts their 20 hours a day of the same old xmas schlock and church starting the day after Thhanksgiving and lasts until New Year's Day... uhgh! I only get one actual radio station where I am and it's at least an NPR station but this time of year the religious go totally off the rails with religious tripe.

Thanks for posting, everyone who likes Miles or is disenchanted with the commercialism of the season will probably enjoy this.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

2. amazing - how the song is so relevant all these years.

Trumpeter Miles Davis liked the album, so when Columbia asked Davis to record a Christmas song in 1962, Davis turned to Dorough for lyrics and singing duties. The result was a downbeat tune called "Blue Xmas," released on Columbia's Jingle Bell Jazz compilation. During that session Dorough recorded another song for Davis, "Nothing Like You," which appeared a few years later at the end of the Sorcerer album, making Dorough one of the few musicians with a vocal performance on a Miles Davis record.

more about Bob Dorough at link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_DoroughReviews:

An excellent cynically downbeat Xmas tune. For those who grew up with Schoolhouse Rock and identify the voice of Bob Dorough with Saturday morning television and not with jazz, you'll most certainly have a "WTF?" moment when first hearing this. Its style is all but identical to the 'Multiplication Rock' songs he would write 10 years later. - Stavro Arrgolus

Facts:
Bob Dorough was one of the many contributing vocalists and writers for Schoolhouse Rock. (Stavro Arrgolus)
According to Jack Chambers (Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis), when Columbia wanted Davis to contribute a song to the "Jingle Bell Jazz" album, Davis complained to Dorough, "What the f*ck am I supposed to play for them? ‘White Christmas’?"

more at link:
http://www.madmusic.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=2073

[2naSalit]

4. Indeed.

I discovered it through friends back in the late 1970s and have kept a copy since for daily listening this time of year. Was a Miles fan since the 60s.

Bob Dorough is so appropriately disenchanted in his tone throughout the song that it just has the staying power to, momentarily at least, help others see what a mockery of the commercialized aspects of the season have become. Seems he's always been an educator of sorts.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. Lyrics by Bob Dorough

Song Lyrics:
Merry Christmas
I hope you have a white one, but for me, it's blue

Blue Christmas, that's the way you see it when you're feeling blue
Blue Xmas, when you're blue at Christmastime
you see right through,
All the waste, all the sham, all the haste
and plain old bad taste

Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin
They're wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins
And nearly everybody's standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup
Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme
Fill my stocking up
All the way up
It's a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy
Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral
Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all
What I call
Fal-de-ral
Bitter gall.......Fal-de-ral

Lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards
While you're very, very busy addressing
Twenty zillion Christmas cards
Now, Yuletide is the season to receive and oh, to give and ahh, to share
But all you December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave and loudly blare
Merry Christmas
I hope yours is a bright one, but for me, it bleeds

[2naSalit]

5. Oh yeah... K&R!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. lol ... thanks, 2naSalit

and may your Christmas be Blue

[2naSalit]

7. And Happy Solstice!

Enjoy.

(we need a cool Santa with shades emoticon)

[Tuesday Afternoon]

8. to you also, Happy Winter Solstice