A Head Full of Wishes

A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.

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Originals: White Christmas by Bing Crosby covered by Damon & Naomi: Xmas special #2

White Christmas was written by Irving Berlin and got it's first airing, recorded by Bing Crosby on Christmas Day 1941, appeared in a film Holiday Inn (1942) and then became so famous it was give a film all of its own in 1954

It was then recorded by pretty much everybody, Damon & Naomi's version was also recorded for a film, Lovely, Still (2008) - this link may jump you to the bit in the film where Damon & Naomi sing while Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn dance.

The track was first released as CDR sold at a UK instore in 2008 and subsequently given away on their website. The song features Naomi on piano, Damon on nylon-string guitar, Michio Kurihara on electric guitar, Bhob Rainey on soprano sax, and Greg Kelley on trumpet.

I thought as a seasonal addendum I'd hunt down a few classic versions, but beyond Darlene Love's perfect version on the Spector Christmas album, almost no one has managed to make a go of it - some songs, I guess are just awful - even a song that's sold 100 million copies!

There's a 1972 cover that is described on Wikipedia as...

Shu-Bi-Dua, Denmark, released a rock version of the song under the title "Rap Jul" ("Quack Christmas") with Danish lyrics depicting a duck (that turns out to be none other than Donald Duck) not looking forward to Christmas, because all humans tend to eat duck at Christmas Eve.

... which sounds like it'd be awesome but frankly I'm afraid it's still a bit of a turd.

I'll stop there with the advice that aside from D&N and Darlene Love's versions I'd suggest you give White Christmas a wide berth and find yourself another Christmas classic, personally I'd recommend this one

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