We had a grand old time last week with the Jose Feliciano holiday staple, Feliz Navidad. Up next, a song that receives much mockery in our house, soley from my wife who despises it. This makes me question whether she loves Christmas at all. Aria and I, however, love this tune, which was a big hit in 1984 and continues to be a prime mainstay of holiday radio. Presenting Wham!’s Last Christmas, daddy-daughter style:
We have one more song to do together, but first, I’ll have a solo piece later this week of a well-known Christmas carol.
The band is back together! Aria joins me for a little fun with Puerto Rican singer Jose Feliciano’s macaronic Christmas pop song, Feliz Navidad, from 1970. It continues to receive an enormous amount of radio airplay during the holiday season and is one of the top 25 most played Christmas songs in the world. Not bad for something he wrote in 10 minutes that only has 19 words.
Strange how our version isn’t on any radio playlists, but it’s a good start to our holiday music season, nonetheless:
On the way is another collaboration, featuring a Wham song that has been covered many times and is a Christmas staple.
It has been a long time since the last ukulele installment, which was a performance of an old Shaker song. I’ve worked on a number of pieces since then. Some I didn’t record…yet. As mentioned before, the music I’m learning is more complicated and requires more practice time than what I was doing a couple years ago. (Every music teacher reading this is thinking, “I would hope so!”) A lot of times I’m on to the next song when my uke teacher feels I’ve learned what I needed to from the current one. But sometimes the piece isn’t quite ready for recording.
This song I really wanted to get out before starting the Christmas music season. It’s called Autumn Leaves and was composed by Joseph Kosma in 1945. The French lyrics were penned by Jacques Pré vert with English lyrics coming later from Johnny Mercer. It has been recorded hundreds of times. Autumn Leaves is a jazz standard and also a pop song; my absolute favorite version is by Eva Cassidy, recorded live in 1996. She approached the piece from a singer-songwriter angle. Perfectly melancholic.
I was given a lead sheet by my teacher and asked to create an intro and a solo. I went with a wistful feeling instructed by the lyrics:
The falling leaves drift by my window The autumn leaves of red and gold I see your lips, the summer kisses The sunburned hands I used to hold
Since you went away the days grow long And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song But I miss you most of all my darling When autumn leaves start to fall
This brings a whole new level of seasonal affective disorder! I had a lot of fun with this one, building from a simple lead sheet:
Coming soon, something French! I hope to have that out sometime early next year.
