Known mostly for their theatrical indie pop, The Decemberists recorded this surprisingly catchy track for their most recent album, Picaresque. Against a driving acoustic guitar, frontman Colin Meloy moves through lyrics that criticize American foreign policy, the media and the pseudo-pundits in Hollywood. Politics have never been this fun!
Listen to a clip here, although its brevity doesn’t do the track justice.
Okay, so seven or eight years ago I’m standing in the J. Crew store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, doing a little Christmas shopping, when I hear a fantastic cover version of “Deck the Halls” over the in-store sound system. I’m a sucker for a great Christmas cover, so naturally I walk up to the front counter to ask the cashier about the song.
“Is this Book of Love?” I ask, thinking it a rhetorical question. What other band has a female lead singer with such a beautifully bored delivery?
The guy behind the counter shrugs. “I have no idea. We use a music service. They just send us the CDs, and we play ‘em.” He looks behind me, at the long line of busy holiday shoppers. He doesn’t offer to go around back and check the CD’s case to confirm the artist for me. I can’t really blame him for that. Much.
So I leave the store, the syncopated fa la la’s echoing in my head, certain that it had to be Book of Love, and that a little searching on the Muze system will help me track it down.
Fast-forward seven or eight years…and I still don’t have the song. Muze had no record of it. iTunes doesn’t either. Neither do any of the dozens of Christmas music compilations I’ve checked. They have versions by SheDaisy, and Whitney Houston, and any number of other artists…none of whom sounds remotely like Book of Love.
My greatest Christmas wish is that someone out there can help me find this song. The song might be by Book of Love…or it might not. The vocal is a dead ringer for BOL’s Susan Ottaviano, but maybe it’s just someone doing a great impression of her. The lyrics are standard “Deck the Halls”, but the arrangement tweaks the melody a bit–particularly on the fa la las. Instead of “fa la la la LAAA, la la la LAAA”, it’s more like “FA la la la, la LALA la la.” Got it?
So, how about it? Have you heard it? Can you find it? Will you help make a young(ish) girl’s long-held Christmas dream come true?
Never mind the rampant, royalty-free downloading going on via myriad unauthorized web sites. Forget about how iPod culture has made buying actual CDs obsolete. Those issues are old news. The fresh new worry wrinkling music executives’ foreheads is the new satellite radio receivers being produced by XM and Sirius, which will allow users to record satellite broadcasts, manage song inventories, and create playlists–much like Apple’s popular iTunes software.
The key difference? Labels get significantly lower compensation for music played on satellite radio than they do for songs sold on iTunes or purchased on a CD. Thus, the black hole draining the music industry of its revenue widens a little further…and sales of Zantac and Excedrin rise a little higher.
This is pretty sweet. The Gorillaz played five shows in Manchester, complete with a monster clip show assembled by Jamie “Murdoc” Hewlett and including De La Soul (doing their “Feel Good, Inc.” bit). To listen to the live show and watch the superbly synchronized clip show, click here. You’ll be happy. You’ll be feelin’ glad. Sunshine in a bag, however, is entirely up to you.
I just saw a commercial on TV for Worship Jamz, in which kids down with the Lord get to boogie their butts off to hot contempo inspirational tunes. I’d like to point out here that Rock and Roll in all of its various genres is the debbil’s music and the debbil’s music only. Any good God-fearing parent knows this as they persuade their kids to not be all wild and free as they once were in their freaky baby boomer generation. Trade in those doobies for some pop scripture, kids! Not since “Put Your Hand in the Hand” was a righteous hit has there been such an awesome movement of RAWK embracing the cross.
However, the moms and children who bought this disc over on Amazon.com are seriously upset! Why, this isn’t the two-disc set being sold on TV! It only has EIGHTEEN songs instead of THIRTY! Shame on them! No “Above All”? You gotta be kidding me! Oh well, at least it still has “(You Are The) Awesome God” (dude). Damn those Amazon charlatans for releasing the debbil’s version of Worship Jamz! This is almost as terrible as when there were two versions of The Smurfs’ All-Star Show album back in the ’80s. The girl next door to me had the version released by Sessions. i had the far groovier K-Tel version with MORE SONGS plus a POSTER! And guess which one was sold on TV? That’s right! The Sessions version!!! Damn thee, debbil!
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