NewYearsDayProject | a song a day blog

  It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas today. The first snow of the season fell in the city where I live, though it fell the first weekend of the month when I was up in Seoul. Starting at 7 a.m. and continuing until about 11, thick flakes descended covering the ground, making the morning commute a little more perilous than the usual idiots, though my carpool driver is skilled in New England winter driving. School started a little late with some traffic preventing the buses from being on time, and when they got in, the students played in the snow, coming late to class--good for them! THEY KNOW THAT SANTA'S ON HIS WAY. I talked to my parents this morning when I couldn't sleep. It was hot in my place, and I went to bed early for two nights before that, so my body felt caught up on sleep. Nothing urgent at home, just mom wanting to make plans for when I go next month near the end of the month. I got to see the Christmas tree, and my mom dressed up in a Santa hat and some

  " Wonderful Christmastime " was rated as the worst Christmas song by   Ultimate Classic Rock . Recorded when 37-year-old rock legend   Paul McCartney   was recording his polarizing second solo record, just before the disbanding of his second band,   Wings ,   McCartney II  was a synth-pop, new wave record in a time when former   Beatles   fans were yelling, "stick to the classics." Recently, critics have come to understand and even praise   McCartney II  for its pioneering in electronic music. The intentionally simple lyrics help to draw attention to the synths and the overall Christmasy atmosphere of the song. THE CHILDREN'S CHOIR SINGS A SONG.  "Wonderful Christmastime" has been covered by many artists, including Diana Ross , Demi Lovato , Hillary Duff , Jump5 , Chicago and Dolly Parton , Pentatonix ,  Family Force 5 ,  Jars of Clay , Eleventyseven , and so many other artists. In 2000, the Christian Rock band Earthsuit recorded the track for Tooth

It's very difficult to find the band KIDS on streaming platforms or online. The Ft. Lauderdale-based Indie band released their sophomore record, Lost Cities ,  on Tooth & Nail in 2020 and the label and the band seems not to have generated much hype. And it's a shame. The band has an interesting take on synth pop and organic sounds, often including trumpet and saxophone in their songs. Today's song, the Christmas classic " War Is Over ," offers a saxophone line that I find simultaneously comforting and eerie.  WAR IS OVER, IF YOU WANT IT.   "War Is Over" is the band's cover of  John Lennon  and  Yoko Ono 's 1971 holiday hit, which was written in protest of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.  My inclusion of this song comes with a prejudice that I'm currently reexamining. When I was young and influenced by far-right Christian rhetoric, I believed that this song was dangerous, as was his hit " Imagine ," also released

  “In the Bleak Midwinter” is another Christmas Hymn that I like particularly because of how infrequently we hear it. The lyrics were penned by Victorian poet Christina Rossetti and published with the title “A Christmas Carol'' in the January 1872 issue of Scribner Monthly and later compiled with other poems in Goblin Market, The Prince’s Progress and Other Poems . IF I WERE A WISEMAN, I WOULD DO MY PART. Christina Rossetti was a devout Catholic living in Protestant England. "In the Bleak Midwinter" shows Rossetti's style of vivid description of scene and sentimental religious feelings. In fact, the lyrics of "In the Bleak Midwinter" touch on a more personal note than other impersonal Christmas hymns as the speaker in the hymn, and us when we sing the hymn, makes a commitment to give the babe in straw her heart. The poem was later set to music and there are two popular versions. Harold Drake composed music for the hymn to be sung by a choir, as did Gu

I’m at the time of year when I start assessing my new year’s goals. And I got to an existential crisis for the blog. I wondered what I’ve achieved with it other than keeping it going. Sure, there have been improvements in font, links, story, and research, but I thought about if a daily post is really sustainable in the coming year. I’m mulling a few ideas over. I’m considering changing the focus of the blog.   YOU CAN ALWAYS COME HOME. I thought about all the things the blog is, but I thought it was actually more helpful to think about what it is not.  First, it’s not a reputable music blog. The amount of time I have and my lack of formal music writing training and lack of connections in the music business make this a purely fan blog as I report about my daily obsessions and Wikipedia reading. Second, it isn’t a novel or even a memoir. I shot down that ideas last year after experimenting with the idea, in favor of the story of the song, but I think that may have been the direction I s

  This week, Copeland announced that they would be touring to celebrate the twentieth anniversary for their debut record, Beneath Medicine Tree . Copeland's sound has changed a lot from the indie nineties-rock inspired band to digging deeper music school band mates (particularly frontman Aaron Marsh 's) classical, jazz, and broadway influences. Before all of that, though, we have a song cycle about a young man affected by his grandmother's death, pinning over a girlfriend--Paula--even named on the record. Some consider Beneath Medicine Tree an indie classic, while others consider it an immature effort for a band with much greater potential.  THERE ARE BIRDS SINGING ON LAMPPOSTS. My sister and I fall on different sides of this debate. Back when I was going through my Copeland binge on their first three records, I liked their first two records best, while my sister liked their second two better. She admired the musical theater experimentation on Eat, Sleep, Repeat , while I

  This fall was when I got into folklore . Is this winter the one that I get into evermore ? Today, I made the jump into the record again after more cursory listens in 2020. I have a few thoughts from this afternoon's listen, but remember that I am by no means a Taylor Swift export the president of a local chapter of her fan club. I am merely offering my opinions on some damn good music. I'm hoping to have some deeper insights next year when I will probably dig deeper into this record.  THE WARMEST BED I'VE EVER KNOWN. A initial thought from when I listened to evermore,   I found that the record was even less cohesive than folklore. In my time with folklore, I began to realize that there was a cohesion to it, and I think the same is true with evermore. The next thing I noticed is that many of the tracks felt like b-sides to folklore, although the record was written and produced quickly after releasing folklore.   I first listened to evermore with my AirPods Pro when they w