I Like Life - Scrooge and Me

Every Christmas Eve for many years we've watched "Scrooge", the Albert Finney musical version of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.  This 1860 story is credited with changing how Christmas is celebrated in England. Prior to Dickens' story of the redemption of a totally unlovable old miser by the spirits of Christmas, Christmas had become a season of debauchery with little of the spirit of the Christmas story in it. Some of the trappings of the old semi-pagan holiday remain, but remarkably transformed. In the United States, the story of old Ebenezer resonated with Americans too.

Charles Dickens was an amazing storyteller. He'd have made quite a living as a Hollywood screenwriter. The dialogue is snappy. The timing is perfection itself and the special effects in the story could have been designed for film. 

In the United States, the Christmas holiday was little more than an extra Sunday and a day off for Civil War soldiers. It was President Ulysses S. Grant who gave Christmas the nudge it needed to make it what it is today. It was Grant who pushed to make Christmas an official national holiday. The Clement Moore's poem and then the New York Times got into the act. Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

With the New York Time's tacit endorsement of Santa Claus, the secularization of Christmas began to move forward. In reaction to what a lot of the churches felt was a bad trend, Christians began to press back by emphasizing the Nativity and the whole "peace on Earth good will toward men" spirit of Christmas. The result has been a national celebration that's one part fairy tale, one part religious observance and one part extended party.

This song expresses my own militant attitude toward Christmas. I like life and the Scrooges of the world may make of that whatever they wish. We have a time of year when people at least try to be nice to one another.  That said, here's "I Like Life" from 1970's "Scrooge".

This is Scrooge AFTER visiting with the three spirits.  Earlier he sings "I Hate Life". Before we go I'd like to included my other favorite song from this movie. Tom Jenkins the soup man leads a crowd singing "Thank You Very Much". Scrooge joins in not realizing that what they are thanking Scrooge for is dropping dead. It's a lovely song. Later after he recovers himself and is redeemed, he reprises this song in a more positive vein.

Merry Christmas and as Tiny Tim so aptly put it, "God bless us every one."

Merry Christmas - Tom

Carol of the Bells

This isn't my favorite version of "Carol of the Bells". I include it because I was named after the Orchestra leader, Wayne King - at least so my mother tells me. My first name belongs to my grandfather and my great grandfather and 29 other Thomases whom I've discovered hanging from the branches of my family tree.  We've all got individual middle names. There are only a few Thomas Juniors and one "the 3rd" that I have found so far, and a couple with "Thomas" as middle name. If I ever get any say so with my grandkids, I'm hoping to at least get one grandson with Thomas for a middle name.  Here's Wayne's big band rendition of Carol of the Bells:

Here's another version of this song I like even better, but I do like to listen to Wayne and his orchestra run a few big band versions of Christmas songs through the old record player. Here are the Piano Guys doing a medley based around Carol of the Bells (for 12 cellos).

Then there is this one which really does make me smile! Algonquin students do a flash mob version of Carol of the Bells with the help of Darth Vader and his electric guitar.

If you go to Youtube, there are dozens of versions of this song including some notable versions done as flashmobs.  There are versions with pianos, bells, voices as bells and even one version with kazoos.

One last version I'm adding to this is the incredible version done by Peter Hollens. This version uses 300 male voices including multiple versions of Peter himself. It's amazing.

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© 2017 by Tom King


PS:  One more. This one by Lindsey Stirling on violin combines dance and snow. This one surprised me. She gets focused on her fiddle as intensely as my friend Jaime Jorge. I need to find some carols of his if he's done any. I love musicians that get this deeply into the music.

Charlie Brown is All Shook Up

I found this fun thing on Youtube. I like Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up". I drove our supervisor nuts when I worked at Brandom's Cabinet Mfg. back home in Keene. I think I've already told this story, but it bears repeating. I only worked at Brandom's a few months during a brief time of desperation and unemployment. Our lady foreman for the framing department wouldn't allow us to listen to the radio while we were working so the guy next to me and I taped the words to Elvis songs on our work boards and merrily framed cabinets while singing Heartbreak Hotel and All Shook Up. She tried to force us to stop, but management wouldn't allow he to stifle our creativity. They noticed we worked faster when we were singing.

This is the slower original version which I think was way better than the one he sang during his later years where he rushed it and always seemed to be in a hurry to get through it. I liked it better when he sang it like he wasn't tired of the song. Maybe he figured he was running out of time. Turns out he was.

The Peanuts Gang version is just fun.

Tom