What are the best Christmas songs?

What are the best Christmas songs?

What are some of the most favorite Christmas songs?

American Live Wire staff members had some ideas about Christmas songs worth sharing. 

Merry Christmas!

What are the best Christmas songs?  In no particular order, here are some of our choices for ho-ho-ho hits:

Amber Harrison favors “Ding Dong Merrily On High” especially “as performed by Celtic Woman.  The music was written by Jehan Tabourot  in the 1500s.  The English composer George R. Woodward who enjoyed church bells added the lyrics hundreds of years later.  He published the completed carol in 1924 as part of his book The Cambridge Carol-Book: Being Fifty-two Songs for Christmas, Easter, And Other Seasons.

Keri Bridgwater  contributed Jona Lewie’s “Stop the Calvary”.  Lewie actually wrote it as more of “a protest song”.  Nevertheless, it became a hit when released as a single in early 1980.  It rose to number 3 on the UK charts just below two re-issued John Lennon songs.  (Lennon was murdered on the same day Lewie’s song was releasedâ€"December 8, 1980.

The next number comes from Tonya O’Dell.  She said: “(H)ere’s my contribution” adding Blink-182’s tune “Won’t Be Home For Christmas”.  If you work in the music industry you might know this one was first put out as a one track radio promo back in 1997.  Most folks know it as a bonus track off the band’s 2005 Greatest Hits album.

Steve Kenniff prefers a newer take on a Christmas classic.  He enjoys Pellek’s cover cut “12 Days of Christmas (Metal Version)”.  This is one of the newest numbers on the playlist having been released just earlier this year.

Christmas music

Following that we have Destaney Peters’ pick “Let There Be Peace On Earth” by Jill ackson Miller and Sy Miller which dates back to 1955.  It was popularized by Vince Gill who included it on his album of the same name in 1993.

Whitney Kahn brought out the big guns with the late Frank Sinatra’s version of “Winter Wonderland”.  The song was co-written by Felix Bernard and Richard B. Smith in 1934.  You can still hear Sinatra’s cover of the cut on a compilation from 1994 although Sinatra recorded the bulk of his seasonal songs in 1948.

Chelsea Alves offered up “All I Want For Christmas Is You” performed by Mariah Carey.  It’s off her 1994 Merry Christmas CD and was co-written with Walter Afanasieff.

Seth J Barr brought out Andy Williams’ iconic “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of The Year”.  It was written in 1963 by Edward Pola and George Wyle.    It’s from The Andy Williams Christmas Album released that same year.

Megan Cornelius had Hanson’s “Silent Night Medley” on her musical mind.  The musical medley melds “O Holy Night,” “Silent Night,” and “O Come All Ye Faithful”.  While these standards go back quite some time the medley is more recent having been released in 1997.

This relocated reporter (raised in PA but now in CA) often prefers “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” because everyone knows “There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays”.  It was written by Kim Gannon, Walter Kent and Buck Ram.  It was first released by Bing Crosby in 1943.

Don’t be a “bad” grinch

Last but certainly not least, is “The Grinch Song” was determined to be pretty much a “group favorite” for this holiday hit list.  It was sung by Thurl Ravenscroft the actor best known as the voice of the original Tony the Tiger.  (“They’re grrreat!”)   It was written by Dr. Seuss and Albert Hague for the now classic 1966 animated TV short “How The Grinch Stole Christmas!”

So there you have it, elves and Elvises, the unofficial, unauthorized American Live Wire Christmas collection for 2013.  Have a good one!

(Images courtesy of Community.Mis.Temple, Betanews and Holderbaum)