Well it's my birthday too, yeah

The Beatles - "Birthday"
The Sugarcubes - "Birthday"

Happy birthday to Loreena McKennitt, Lupe Fiasco, Billie Joe Armstrong, Taylor Hawkins, and...Paris Hilton?!

Also, Thelonius Monk died on this day in 1982.

(Photo: Nicole Kidman in Birthday Girl.)

Leave it to the birds and the bees and the Viennese

Blossom Dearie - "Down With Love"

(Comic strip from the irresistible Lenore, natch.)

Here comes the jackpot question in advance

"What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" - Ella Fitzgerald

(From one of my favourite Christmas albums ever, Ella Wishes You a Swingin' Christmas. And it does swing, baby.)

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It's a song you know well

Because nothing says Christmas like -- unh! -- James Brown.

Well, not really. But when you've had enough of sterile studio recordings of pop and jazz divas warbling carols, you can count on James Brown to spike your egg nog. Get down!



"Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto"
"Sweet Little Baby Boy"
"Christmas is Love"

And there's no need to fight last-minute shoppers at the mall. The Best of James Brown: The Christmas Collection -- 17 funky and festive tracks -- is available on iTunes for $9.99.

Addendum: RIP, Mr. Brown. I feel inexplicably responsible, having posted about him the day before.

Bonus track: Animaniacs, "The Noel Song". Best. Noel. Puns. Ever.

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This isn't music-related, but it is audio- and Christmas-related: on the latest episode of CBC's Quirks & Quarks, an engineering professor explains that it is possible for Santa to visit all our houses in one night with jetpacks and a relativity cloud. Awesome! A guest also discusses the virgin birth of komodo dragons. My favourite part is him pointing out that if Mary had conceived through parthenogenesis, Jesus would have been a girl. I think there's an untold story in that.

Start spreading the news

Out of town for the rest of the week, so here's a playlist I put together from my iTunes library to tide you over. My vacation destination is cleverly hidden within the song titles.

Belle & Sebastian - "Piazza, New York Catcher"
Cerys Matthews - "Streets of New York"
Dave Frishberg - "Do You Miss New York?"
David Shire - "Manhattan Skyline"
Frank Sinatra - "Theme From New York New York"
Interpol - "NYC" free Amazon.com download
Jennifer Warnes - "First We Take Manhattan"
Miles Davis - "There's a Boat That's Leaving Soon For New York"
R.E.M. - "First We Take Manhattan"
Richard Julian - "Slow New York" MySpace
Sonny Rollins - "Manhattan"
Stacey Kent - "Manhattan"
Tal Farlow - "Autumn in New York"
Tori Amos - "I Can't See New York"
U2 - "New York"

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La-di-da, oh la-di-da

I love the fall. It means scarves, corduroy jackets, apple-picking, pumpkin pie -- and that I can sing Stacey Kent’s version of “’Tis Autumn” around the house.

There is absolutely no reason why I should like Stacey Kent so much. Her interpretations are pretty straight; no vocal gymnastics or flights of fancy. She's simply a chanteuse. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but they’re a dime a dozen.)

But she made me like standards that I never liked before e.g. “Too Darn Hot”, “Makin’ Whoopee”, and “The Trolley Song”. I mean, “The Trolley Song”! “Zing-zing-zing went my heartstrings” -- yeah, you know the one. She just has this charming, effortless, lilting delivery, and on The Boy Next Door she applies it to everything from Porter to Paul Simon and it’s all lovely.

Stacey Kent website
Stacey Kent - “’Tis Autumn”

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Welcome to the working week

I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you. Four songs for a Monday morning:

Elvis Costello - “Welcome to the Working Week”
PJ Harvey - “Working for the Man”
Constantines - “Working Fulltime”
BTO - “Takin’ Care of Business”

You gotta do it till you’re through it so you better get to it.

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