SOUNDTRACK: RINGO STARR-The Best of Ringo Starr: Christmas Collection: 20th Century Masters (2003).
This Christmas album came out twice. First in 1999 as I Wanna Be Santa Claus and then in 2003 as The Best of Ringo Starr: Christmas Collection: 20th Century Masters. The track listing is the same. Some history suggests that when the 1999 album came out the label failed to push it and it kind of faded away.
As you can see from the images, the original cover was the same, more or less. So, for whatever reason, this new label or maybe its the same label) decided to repackage the Christmas disc as a best of. Well, whatever, it’s still a great Christmas album, and has quickly become one of my favorites.
Like most people, I’ve never been a huge fan of Ringo. And yet, I feel like I have new respect for him as a musician and as a humanitarian (he has recently been knighted). This album is also a perfect example of good will, love and happiness. And while it may be a bit cheesy here and there, his joyfulness overrides any complaints.
There’s some new songs and some traditional songs as well, all done in a vaguely Beatles rock n roll sorta way.
“Come On Christmas, Christmas Come On” is a new song. It’s a rollicking childlike good fun wondering why it’s taking Christmas so long to get here. I can’t believe this isn’t played on more Christmas channels. With lots of big loud chanting.
“Winter Wonderland” is like a slower Beatles swagger, with some great backing vocals and a cool instrumentation.
“I Wanna Be Santa Claus” is exactly what you think a Ringo Starr original Christmas song would be like: light-hearted whimsical and very sweet.
“The Little Drummer Boy” is a quick-tempoed version of the song (which is good as it’s usually too slow) with some solid drumming from Ringo himself. I was delightfully surprised at the presence of bagpipes throughout the song.
“Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer” sweet and boppy with swinging bass sax and more great backing vocals. There’s a spoken part where Ringo gets to use his Liverpudlian accent that the luved him. There’s even a “mistake” where he speaks, “he said Santa, no he didn’t he said Rudolph” [laughs]. He even throws in a Ringo the Red Nosed Reindeer line.
“Christmas Eve” is a sad song about being alone. But he’s not willing to totally bring us down as there is some hope.
“The Christmas Dance” is a fun skiffle song about going to, yes a Christmas Dance. It swings and is generally good fun.
“Christmas Time Is Here Again” is my least favorite song on the disc. Although I do like the chorus the main part is just too simple and repetitive (and long!). It’s just repeating that same line over and over (with a weird shout of “Do it for Jesus, Jesus Loves you.” It’s also weird that several times he states O-U-T spells out, but the song doesn’t actually.
“Blue Christmas” is almost country-sounding with a slide guitar. It’s sweet and is one of the better versions of this song.
“Dear Santa” sounds about a mash up of several songs (I expect to hear the “oooohs” from “Twist and Shout”; there’s a bit of “Dear Prudence,” there’s even the melody of “Beauty School Dropout” from Grease. It’s a nice sentiment but a little long. However, I do really like the shout out to John: “Dear Santa, I’ve heard it all before, from Jingle Bells, to no more war.”
“White Christmas” is done in a Jamaican lite-reggae feel with steel drums. It’s rather silly and fun.
“Pax Um Biscum (Peace Be With You)” is a cool Middle-Eastern sounding jam with a sitar. There’s also vocals in several languages. he ends this song by muttering. ” Merry Christmas, Annabelle.”
It’s a fun and enjoyable Christmas album from a fun and enjoyable Beatle.
[READ: September 9, 2017] Mighty Jack and the Giant King
I rather assumed that this Mighty Jack series would have several book s in it. So I was surprised to see that this story pretty much ends the Jack saga (although the epilogue does leave things open…)
The story picks up right where it ended–Jack and Lilly are climbing a beanstalk to chase the monster that stole Jack;s sister Maddy. They are clearly not on Earth and the monster seems to be rats working together as larger monster.
Jack and Lily are separated. Jack heads toward the giant’s castle while Lily falls underground and meets goblins.
The goblins are creepy but they help her out–they even pump her full of goblin blood which makes her extra powerful. Lilly is freaked out by this but has to admit she feels a lot better (even tough this is a book for kids, its kind of violent–Lily kills some rats and a bad guy (not too graphically) and she does get broken ribs.
Meanwhile Jack encounters the characters (unnamed) who live in the pipes connected to the giants’ residence. They can’t help him because “oh, we’re cowards.” Turns out the giant’s castle is “a nexus point you could get anywhere from here.”
Lily is pretty happy to feel better until it is revealed that the goblin king will certainly want to marry her: “Is pretty. Got both leg. King be joy.” They only way she can get out of being the king’s bridge is to fight him. And not only is she up to the task, she is looking forward to it.
Turns out the giant plans to eat Jack’s sister and to grind her bones to make their bread. Jack jumps into to save her but the dragon who helped them out is there to tel him to hold back. The dragon tells him that the giants are warming up a machine to accept human blood. It will take some time but if it doesn’t get human blood, it will explode.
There’s a very funny moment when Lily finds an old car–garbage from all over the worlds ends up there–her brothers would love the car! So we see Lily driving what looks like a toy car (but it is full size) around giants.
The story eventually returns to earth where Jack discovers that his house is about to be foreclosed. This is a weird plot point given the fantasy elements of the story. I don’t recall if it was even an issue in the first book (except that his mom has two jobs). That adds a weird level of reality to their magical story. It is also dealt with fairly quickly.
There’s a sweet moment at the end of the story where the magical world invades the real world for a panel–which seems to set up a future story. But then the epilogue made all of us go WHAT?! Because Hatke doesn’t appear to be done with Jack yet, and there are some other characters you might recognize from another franchise of his….
I’m really looking forward to what comes next.
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