Category: Tunes

Highlights from the soundtrack of my life.

This One’s for You, Shan!

I recently thought about this and Wham! has been my FAVORITE Christmas song since about the second or third grade. I remember talking with my cousinT probably about 17 or 18 years ago about Christmas songs. One Christmas song that I heard often on the radio that kind of got on my nerves was that Bruce Springsteen song when he talks to the E St. band about Clarence wanting a new saxophone and practicing and rehearsing really hard so Santa would get him one. That conversation used to bug me! That’s when, my cousinT, Shannon, told me that’s one of her favorite songs.  I laughed and told her that, Last Christmas was my favorite song and that was a song that she didn’t like very much!

Now, I cannot hear this version of, Santa Claus is Coming to Town without thinking of her and smiling!  It seems that this year, I have a few addendum, songs that I will have to add to my Christmas Faves song list. So, Shannon, this one’s for you!  💜💜💜

ALMOST Forgotten Tune #38

I like receiving notices of my Facebook friends’ birthdays. I absolutely love birthdays and love to acknowledge people’s birthdays! Today, I got an alert of a newer Facebook friend’s birthday.   We have gone to the same school from first grade to 12th grade. We were in all of the same honors classes in high school. We were school friends and never hang out socially. but I remember that he made me a mixed tape before I was driving. I thought I was in middle school but Janet Jackson’s album, The Velvet Rope, didn’t come out until 1997. I was a sophomore.

It was the notification that it was his birthday that made me think of that mixed tape. The song was my favorite on the tape! I remember that I liked it a whole lot because she says, “Hey J”  in the beginning and I took it as me because my name is Jennifer. I wasn’t called, “J” until I began teaching but I remember thinking of this tape some eleven years ago and I thought of it today because it’s yhe guy who made me that mixed tape’s birthday!

I’ve listened to this song a number of times after I searched the video on YouTube and have been singing it ALL DAY LONG!   Even though I am not 26th like the song says, because I am 36 I’m going to let it fit anyway! 😂😂😂

December 2018 Faves

I had a Neurology appointment a little while ago and that was the first day I realized that Mr. Mister sang this song:

I couldn’t hear a Mr. Mister song without thinking of this song which reminds me of Sean being young.

Just before my Mom was finished putting my wheelchair together and was going to get me out of the car, I heard this song which immediately reminded me of  riddle school and my friend Natalie:

All-Time Christmas Faves 2018

Yep, still NOT Christmas without these tunes! Even though I heard  this first song which is my ultimate, favorite Christmas song EVER a few days ago…

“Last Christmas” Wham!

“I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”  Gayla Peevey

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”  Judy Garland

“Merry Christmas, Darling”  Karen Carpenter

“All I Want for Christmas is You”  Mariah Carey

“Feliz Navidad”  Jose Feliciano – DUH!!!

“Christmas Shoes”  Alabama

“Shake up Christmas”  Train

“Please Come Home for Christmas” Bon Jovi

“O, Holy Night”  Jon Secada

“River”  Sarah McGlachlan –  ALWAYS makes me think of Parker and I smile!

“Baby, Please Come Home”  U2

“Mary, Did You Know?”  CeeLo Green

Songs added in 2014:

“Underneath the Tree”  Kelly Clarkson

“Do They Know It’s Christmas?”  Band Aid 1984

“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings”  Barenaked Ladies Feat. Saran McLachlan

My Mom played this one for me just after Veteran’s Day in 2015:

I cried.

“A Soldier’s Christmas Poem”

I added the songs in 2016 because I was watching Ellen a lot when I first  was off work and even though I am not Jewish, I love Adam Sandler and Sean does too!

“It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”  Andy Williams

“The Original Hanukkah Song”  Adam Sandler

“The Hanukkah Song – Part 2”  Adam Sandler

“The Hanukkah Song – Part 3”  Adam Sandler

“The Hanukkah Song – Part 4”  Adam Sandler

Sleeping Babies?!  I LOVE it  and it’s just a Pampers commercial but can fit in with Christmas songs because, “Silent Night” is a Christmas song!

Added in 2017:

I dig this version too!

“Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”  James Taylor

“Christmas Lights”  Coldplay

A friend of mine gave me these suggestions for 2018:

John Denver and the Muppets Christmas album.  I can dig these too!

”Christmas is Coming”  Miss Piggy

“A Christmas Wish”  Kermit the Frog

“We Wish You a Merry Christmas” The Muppets

The same friend suggested this one and I kind of dig it too!

“Yule Shoot Your Eye Out”  Fall Out Boy

My Song

Saturday night and last night after my Mom had left and I was tucked nicely into my bad, she called me.   She doesn’t usually call me after I am in bed unless there is something wrong. I mediately answered! She told me that, “My song” was on.

Granted, it was a little bit early because Thanksgiving is not until Thursday but it IS my ultimate, favorite Christmas song EVER!!! She turned it up and I HAD to sing along at the top of my lungs! Both times, it was at the verse, “Once bitten and twice shy…”

Having heard this song twice and given the fact that I have already started watching Hallmark Christmas movies this year, Christmas is being celebrated a little bit early!

I’M DOWN!!!

*As I dictated this blog post  into my phone , I pulled up the Wham! video on YouTube, Turned the volume on my phone all the way up and started singing  along with  the song at the top of my lungs!. Sean was in his room and began saying something so I stopped the music and he was singing along! He knew all of the words!

I have succeeded! I told him that his kids will know that this is my ultimate, favorite Christmas song EVER!

YAY!!!

ALMOST Forgotten Tune #37

I heard this song on Friday as they waited in my Mom‘s driveway after my Neurology appointment.  It was definitely a throwback.  Whatever happened to this guy?!

I saw this video show up in my YouTube queue today.

So this is what he’s been up to!

ALMOST Forgotten Tune #35 & #36

This morning,  after Sean went to school, I fell back to sleep and dreamt about this song. I couldn’t quite remember the tune so I opened my eyes and searched it on Apple Music:

I laid in my bed and thought back to  the summer of 2003 when I first heard this song. Seems like a lifetime ago!

I can’t post about Pink Floyd without including this song!:

The memories that come to mind when I hear this song are that I am watching a cover band at a bar perform it  a couple of years before I started teaching. My first year teaching, in the old CCA building, as I sat in a colleague’s room  is she decorated it before the beginning of this school year, I remember another colleague commenting in the hall and all three of us started singing it!

That memory also seems like a lifetime ago!

 

Special Moment

I wrote yesterday about Sean taking me to the polls to vote.   I guess I had too much fun voting with him that I kind of pooped out today! It made me think of this song:

I thought of this song for a couple of reasons. First of all, my head feels like it is underwater  and my whole body feels a bit wonky and my knee hurrs!  Almost like it’s a, “ Sunday morning coming down.” Secondly, this song makes me think of my Dad. He picked me up at WMU and took me to vote in my first presidential election. We voted together. That was a special moment for me!  One that I am pretty sure I’m going to remember forever!

Sean did not vote yesterday because he is not old enough but he helped me to cast my ballot. I have often spoken with him about the fact that pretty soon, we will vote together.   That fact is exciting for me! I’m not sure about him (because he’s a boy) but this will be another special  moment for me!   It will be an EXTRA special moment because of what Sean meant to my Dad and Vice versa.