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So remember back in the introduction to this Advent calendar I mentioned that former Beatles suck at Christmas songs? It doesn't seem to apply to their wives: this is a Yoko Ono song, and it's amazing, although I admit I like this cover better than the original.

From this interview, in which Thea Gilmore also has trenchant things to ( Read more... )

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We're a bit chronologically challenged again; St. Stephen's Day is better known in these parts as Boxing Day. This song is all about that point in the Christmas season when you are sick and tired of all your relatives and contemplating (or indeed committing) murder. Incidentally if you can imagine a fouler drink than Tia Maria mixed ( Read more... )

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Here we have a second song from Thea Gilmore (she also kicked off this whole mad experiment). I realize it still lacks a week to midwinter, but I was more concerned with musical flow than calendar accuracy when I put this together. Sorry!

This review in Northern Sky gives a bit of the history of this song:

Considering herself a ( Read more... )

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I thought we'd kick off with a song about the True Meaning of Christmas. It comes late on Thea Gilmore's unconventional but excellent holiday album Strange Communion, which I discovered around this time last year. There, it acts as a shock to the system, a soft-spoken and lethal counterpoint to the eight songs that precede it. I think ( Read more... )