"(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home" by Anberlin, Monday, December 5, 2022 (repost)
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In 2010, Rolling Stonenamed Darlene Love's 1963 song "(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home" as the number 1 Christmas rock song ever recorded. Born Darlene Wright in 1941, and renamed Darlene Love by producer Phil Spector, Darlene began her musical career as the lead vocalist for the girl group the Blossoms. Besides her career with the Blossoms and her solo career, Love sang lead on two Crystals songs and back up for many notable artists including Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Sonny & Cher, and Tom Jones. Love has also acted on Broadway and appeared in the Lethal Weaponfilms. Love performed "(Christmas) Baby, Please Come Home" every episode before Christmas on David Letterman from 1986-2014, except for 2007 during the writers' strike.
PRETTY LIGHTS ON THE TREE. "Baby, Please Come Home" has been covered by many artists including Mariah Carey, Michael Bublè, Death Cab for Cutie, Jars of Clay, among others. One of the most famous covers is the 1987 U2version. Released on the album A Very Special Christmasamong covers of Christmas classics by other popular artists, the album was created to raise money for the Special Olympics. The album was released during the album cycle for one of U2's biggest albums, The Joshua Tree, which made U2 one of the biggest bands in the world at that time. The bluesy rendition of the Christmas classic actually features Darlene Love on background vocals to accompany Bono's crooning. Perhaps the U2 version is synonymous with today's song, but it was the Anberlinversion that always makes it to my annual Christmas lists. Recorded for the 2005 Tooth & Nail project Happy Christmas, Vol. 4, Anberlin's version of this song has landed on several Christian Rock holiday albums and ended up on 2007's B-side project, Lost Songs. Since the winter of 2005, this became my adult Christmas favorite. I listened to it on Christmas mixes in the car until Lost Songs
arrived in November of 2007. It was the song that I'd drive my sisters around Christmas shopping to. The synth-y intro to the forlorn guitar solo before the guitar "crashes" at the end made me think about how Christmas plans always kind of fall apart and we're just left with the chaos of the season--the shopping, the parties, the getting together. And if we're lucky, we'll have some moments of silence as we stare at the Christmas lights on the tree or we witness the soft sound of snow.
THE CHURCH BELLS IN TOWN, THEY'RE RINGING A SONG. It's three weeks until Christmas, and I'm forcing myself to feel something. In Korea, Christmas is a day off of work for schools and most offices; however, because it's a Saturday this year, it's like it doesn't exist. Christmas was my favorite holiday when I was a kid. We sang Christmas songs at church. When we lived in New York, we cut down a tree and decorated it maybe two weeks before Christmas. In New York it always snowed before Christmas in my childhood. One year was a little warmer, and it rained on Christmas Eve, but by Christmas morning the rain had turned to snow. The season always started with choosing and cutting a tree a week or two before Christmas. We’d decorate it and little by little presents would appear. We weren’t told about Santa except that some kids believed in him. Next we celebrated at my Great Grandmother's house the Saturday night before Christmas with my first and second cousins. The presents were always a letdown for a kid--gloves, socks, hats. Every year I hoped that there would be something fun, but I never minded because there was always great food and so many family members to see. Christmas Eve was always spent at my grandparents' house with cousins, and the gifts were always more fun. I got Matchbox or Hot Wheels. My family started the tradition of opening presents on Christmas night. My parents didn't want to deal with the 5 am wake up, but they always let us open one present on Christmas morning. It was usually a board game or something we could play with until the night. We'd always leave the Christmas tree plugged in all day on Christmas day. We usually unplugged in the later morning the other days and turn it on at night, but Christmas was special. We usually played board games, watched Christmas movies, or played with Legos on Christmas day, waiting for the sun to set. Some years since I moved to Korea, my family said that they'd "Save Christmas for me" until I could get home in early January. In 2020, I said that I would try to come home every year, but it's looking like maybe I can start that in 2023.
When I was a Christian teenager, a book started circulating in my church youth group. Joshua Harris wrote about youth with wisdom and authority that seemed logical and categorical for every situation to the young women who read I Kissed Dating Goodbye . The book’s thesis argued that dating was a worldly alternative to the more purposeful Christian concept of courtship. Dating fueled erotic passions, which must be saved for a heterosexual marriage. Dating is casual, even preteens dates. Courtship was about vetting a marriage partner and would happen in the late teen years or early adulthood. YOU THINK I'M PRETTY WITHOUT ANY MAKEUP ON . Josh Harris’s I Kissed Dating Goodbye was part of a movement I’ve written about a lot: purity culture. How much this movement influenced young Katy Hudson, a pastor’s daughter in Southern California, touring with a slew of Christian rockers on the heels of her debut, self-titled album , I can only speculate what went through the 17-year-old star’s
On April 8th, people from around the world crowded the path of a rare total solar eclipse that spanned from central Mexico to Newfoundland. The celestial event lasted at most 4 minutes and 28 seconds. In the eclipse's direct path, businesses charged excessive rates for tourists to stay, dine, and enjoy themselves before and after the short main event. Many recall the 2017 total eclipse when then-President Trump looked directly at the sun without protective glasses, leaving experts aghast. As the 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses were less than seven years apart, why the hype and international travel? While the two solar eclipses happened only seven years apart, the last total eclipse before 2017 in the contiguous fifty states was on March 7, 1970, and the next total solar eclipse after 2024 is not until 2044, but only be visible in the north-midwestern states around sunset. I SEE THE NIGHT SLIPPING OVER. The cosmic phenomenon of the sun being blocked by the sun’s light being block
Capitalizing on the pop-punk sound of the time Tooth & Nail signed Search the City , and they released their first album A Fire So Big the Heavens Can See It in 2008. The band played at Tooth & Nail Day at Cornerstone that year and produced several radio singles from the radio-friendly album. Tongue-in-cheek lyrics in songs like " Son of a Gun " and " Ambulance Chaser " lyrically could connect this Detroit-based band with the likes of a clean-lyriced Blink-182 , Angels or Airwaves , or Relient K . Five years after Fire , the band reformed with a new drummer, bassist, and vocalist, 21-year-old Travis Bobier , who was much younger than the other band members. The 2012 album Flight was very similar to Fire, with Bobier's vocal performance on the album of high-register, energetic emo sound like original singer Josh Frost . YOU HAVE A PLACE TO CALL YOUR OWN THAT NO ONE CAN EVERY TAKE FROM YOU. The opening track of Flight , " My Secrets Have Secr
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