My Favorite Holiday Tunes

These days, you’d be hard pressed to walk into a grocery, retail, or drug store and not hear holiday tunes blaring from the rafters. Turn on the radio and it’s you’ll find much of the same – nonstop holiday and Christmas songs playing over and over. Even after Thanksgiving and Black Friday, it never feels quite like the holidays without the perpetual barrage of Christmas tunes. Famous musicians have dedicated entire songs and even albums to the holidays, and there are dozens of beloved American holiday songs that fill our hearts and heads each year.

I’ve made a playlist of some of the greatest holiday tunes, full of nostalgic classics and a few newer songs, with one or two “guilty pleasures.” A handful of these songs might even be more obscure than what you’ll typically find playing at the department store! Use them at your office party, in the car, or while you’re working out, anywhere!

Miss Mayfield’s Holiday Playlist

1. Bing Crosby & David Bowie “The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth”

      2. John Lennon “Happy Christmas (War is Over)

3    3. The Beach Boys “Little Saint Nick”

4    4. Chuck Berry “Run Rudolph Run”

5    5. Booker T & The MG’s “Jingle Bells”

6    6. Bing Crosby “White Christmas” (Bing Crosby on this list twice? I know, I know, he's just great!)

      7. Jose Feliciano “Feliz Navidad”

8    8. Elvis Presley “Blue Christmas”

      9. Louis Prima “What Will Santa Claus Say (When He Finds Everybody Swingin’)”

     10. U2 “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)”

     11. Vince Guaraldi Trio “Christmas Time is Here”

1   12. Andy Williams “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’

1   13. The Ramones “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight)”

     14. Ella Fitzgerald “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”

1   15. Frank Sinatra “I’ll Be Home For Christmas”

1   16. Mariah Carey “All I want for Christmas is You”

What are some of your favorite holiday tunes?

Image: Chiot's Run via Flickr CC

Experience John Lennon Like Never Before With ‘The Bermuda Tapes’

Only the most diehard fans know about John Lennon’s 1980 sailing trip to Bermuda, and subsequent release of Double Fantasy, an album he created collaboratively with wife Yoko Ono. The music on this album was truly different from his former work; it was for a new kind of generation, and was inspired by Lennon’s travels and his adult life. Sadly, Double Fantasy and its impact were deeply overshadowed by the musician’s murder, which happened only three weeks after the record was released. Now, thirty-three years after John Lennon’s tragic death, fans can celebrate the life and music of the late artist in a whole new way.

John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes is an interactive music app for iPads and iPhones that chronicles the making of Double Fantasy and the journey that inspired Lennon to record those songs. “Integrating excerpts of Lennon’s demo tapes recorded in Bermuda with innovative game play and intimate documentary storytelling, John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes is a thrilling, unprecedented experience for music and technology fans alike,” explains the app’s creators.

The app is directed by Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Michael Epstein and digital artist Mark Thompson, and produced by Andrew Banks. It was also made possible with the help of Yoko Ono, who says, “Writing Double Fantasy was a very exciting time creatively for both John and me. I think the album captures the sense of discovery and the artistic dialogue that John and I shared at that time and provides a new way to help us imagine a world without hunger,” of the recording of the original record.  

John Lennon: The Bermuda Tapes is an app that you can feel really good about purchasing, as all net proceeds from the project will go towards the nonprofit WhyHunger and its campaign to end childhood hunger and global poverty. Learn more at lennonbermudatapes.com.