Wonderful Christmastime
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Yankeefan2 wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Regarding "Wonderful Christmas", I'm sort of the middle between Nancy and many people who dislike "Wonderful Christmas". When I hear it in a mall or store, I think the overall music (and bells) during the Christmas season sound quite nice. I don't think that Paul's song is one of the best Christmas songs in the modern era but it's certainly not horrible and one of the worsts to my ears. The bridge/hook in the middle "the choir of children sing their song"... is a little too predictable to my ears and not close to one of Paul's classic bridges. Also, the overall lyrics are too bland for my taste. Not bad but not great either in my opinion. On the other side, it is still a good song when you are measuring against normal artists. Sometimes when you are talking about Paul McCartney, the yardstick is set so high that we expect more. Unfortunately for Paul, many expect a Macca Christmas song to reach the Yesterday, Hey Jude or Here There and Everywhere level. For that reason, I think Wonderful Christmas is still a good song. I think the Radio Programmers prove that point with all the airplay WC revceives. Success breeds discontent hence so many of the "worse Christmas song remarks.
I never took "Wonderful Christmastime" as anything but a fun upbeat song about Christmas. I kind of agree that McCartney seemed to be going thru the motions and wanted to release a Christmas song that would be played on the radio. It is ok and I have heard worse. Every hear Springsteen singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", it is awful. Anyway, Merry Christmas BJ and I hope you have a wonderful 2020 !!
Well, we can agree about Springsteen - cringeworthy!!
Here's the complete version of Christmastime Is Here Again for everyone to enjoy! Happy Christmas!
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Yankeefan2 wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Regarding "Wonderful Christmas", I'm sort of the middle between Nancy and many people who dislike "Wonderful Christmas". When I hear it in a mall or store, I think the overall music (and bells) during the Christmas season sound quite nice. I don't think that Paul's song is one of the best Christmas songs in the modern era but it's certainly not horrible and one of the worsts to my ears. The bridge/hook in the middle "the choir of children sing their song"... is a little too predictable to my ears and not close to one of Paul's classic bridges. Also, the overall lyrics are too bland for my taste. Not bad but not great either in my opinion. On the other side, it is still a good song when you are measuring against normal artists. Sometimes when you are talking about Paul McCartney, the yardstick is set so high that we expect more. Unfortunately for Paul, many expect a Macca Christmas song to reach the Yesterday, Hey Jude or Here There and Everywhere level. For that reason, I think Wonderful Christmas is still a good song. I think the Radio Programmers prove that point with all the airplay WC revceives. Success breeds discontent hence so many of the "worse Christmas song remarks.
I never took "Wonderful Christmastime" as anything but a fun upbeat song about Christmas. I kind of agree that McCartney seemed to be going thru the motions and wanted to release a Christmas song that would be played on the radio. It is ok and I have heard worse. Every hear Springsteen singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", it is awful. Anyway, Merry Christmas BJ and I hope you have a wonderful 2020 !!
Same to you Yankeefan. My wife and I are going to Sacramento CA over the Christmas holiday to visit family. Looking forward to it as we will be visiting several sites in Northern California including San Francisco and Monterey.
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Nancy R wrote:
Yankeefan2 wrote:
B J Conlee wrote:
Kestrel wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
Yeah,I would tend to agree with you there although at least I'm happy to listen to it on the radio. Unlike , for example, Ebony and Ivory where I'd probably hurl the radio out of the nearest window.
The main problem with WC is the lyric. While I can see the logic in keeping the lyric simple and easy to sing along to, the opening line of 'The moon is right' is just plain stupid. Why not 'The moon is bright'? At least that would make sense. But the vocal performance and instrumentation I really like.
Regarding "Wonderful Christmas", I'm sort of the middle between Nancy and many people who dislike "Wonderful Christmas". When I hear it in a mall or store, I think the overall music (and bells) during the Christmas season sound quite nice. I don't think that Paul's song is one of the best Christmas songs in the modern era but it's certainly not horrible and one of the worsts to my ears. The bridge/hook in the middle "the choir of children sing their song"... is a little too predictable to my ears and not close to one of Paul's classic bridges. Also, the overall lyrics are too bland for my taste. Not bad but not great either in my opinion. On the other side, it is still a good song when you are measuring against normal artists. Sometimes when you are talking about Paul McCartney, the yardstick is set so high that we expect more. Unfortunately for Paul, many expect a Macca Christmas song to reach the Yesterday, Hey Jude or Here There and Everywhere level. For that reason, I think Wonderful Christmas is still a good song. I think the Radio Programmers prove that point with all the airplay WC revceives. Success breeds discontent hence so many of the "worse Christmas song remarks.
I never took "Wonderful Christmastime" as anything but a fun upbeat song about Christmas. I kind of agree that McCartney seemed to be going thru the motions and wanted to release a Christmas song that would be played on the radio. It is ok and I have heard worse. Every hear Springsteen singing "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", it is awful. Anyway, Merry Christmas BJ and I hope you have a wonderful 2020 !!
Well, we can agree about Springsteen - cringeworthy!!
Here's the complete version of Christmastime Is Here Again for everyone to enjoy! Happy Christmas!
Thanks Nancy and have a great Christmas.
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B J Conlee wrote:
love2travel wrote:
Nancy R wrote:
Bruce M. wrote:
Wonderful Christmastime is Paul on autopilot. Not one of his finest hours.
We should all be able to write a song like that on "autopilot!" If I had a gun to my head I couldn't come up with as good of a Christmas song! Agree to disagree.
NancyR if you had a gun to your head... which is a strange thought... but I'm sure you could come up with something even if it was one of those many Christmas song's that repeat a lot !!
When Ebony and Ivory came out, I remember being happy that Paul was doing his bit to address the struggles of Racial inequalities in 1982. That made the song even better!
Stevie Wonder has such a signature funk, over all of his song's and harmonica too. Really love that about his music! Happy to hear the bounce at any time.
Speaking of Stevie Wonder's harmonica, I have become a big fan of Paul's song "Only Our Hearts"on the "Kisses" album. Love Paul's vocal and Stevie's harmonica solo in the middle is fantastic.
Just to emphasize, it's not that I hate "What's That You're Doing" on Tug of War. It's not a terrible song and it does have some of Stevie's funk, but I never thought it fit well with so many great introspective Paul songs on Tug and it went on way too long in my opinion (over 6 minutes).
Getting back to Wonderful Christmas, I always thought that the bridge "The choir of children sing their song" was a bit clunky. I had said prredictable but I think clunky is a better description of my slight criticism. Again, I think it is a good Christmas song.
Stevie Wonders' signature harmonica is so recognizable and always enjoyable. Only Our Hearts was a beautiful surprise on the Kisses album. To me, the song delved a bit further into revealing the heart of McCartney at a deeper level of say the Ecce Cor Meum Orchestral/Choir level. It was quite a gem and a very personal song, inserted on to the album of standards.
While Ecce Cor Meum was a very cohesive theme, it seems to me that Paul's albums have their own cohesiveness that has special meaning to Paul. You notice that he often releases song's that some of us might like even more, and we might wish it was on the album...yet another thought may be that those later released songs, may be a cohesive grouping for him, that needs the separate release. He even gives away some of his best songs!
This has been how he does it, on almost every album. I think this is the genius of McCartney and we may not see the pattern, yet I do believe there is meaning to the order of the song's and how they are listed and released. Just my humble opinion, I really enjoy listening to it all.
Wonderful Christmas is definitely a family song, with the children practicing all night long... Wondering what line you might have put in the song? Maybe Linda liked it...remember John liked the movement you need is on your shoulder. Paul was thinking of ditching it, John liked it. So goes song writing... We all wish we could write songs, not so easy when I tried to give it a go...