The Carpenters get "Have Yourself Have a Merry Little Christmas", Bing Crosby gets "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas", Kenny G gets "Away in a Manger" and, with thanks to Crystal for reminding me, Sammy Davis Jr. and Carmen McRae get "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
Wikipedia has a list of the recordings of "Baby, It's Cold Outside". It was first sung in the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. But that's not the best part. The best part is that it was sung in the movie twice, first by Esther Williams and RICARDO MONTALBAN, and then by Betty Garrett and Red Skelton!
(As I typed that paragraph, the song popped up on Music Choice, but it isn't the SD/CM version nor is it the KHAN!!!! version. It's Vanessa Williams and Bobby Caldwell.)
Other great duets on "Baby":
There are two pairings that deserve special attention. First, there's Dean Martin and Martina McBride, recorded by mixing Dean's solo version from 1959 with Martina singing in 2006. Putting aside the creepy duet-with-dead-people thing, why was there a 1959 solo version to begin with? Dean Martin couldn't find a woman to record the song with him in 1959?!?
Then there's Alan Cumming and Liza Minnelli. First, we have Alan Cumming - a man that has played a James Bond villain, Nightcrawler (teaming with Famke Janssen both times), Fegan Floop and Hitler, was once described as "a frolicky pan-sexual sex symbol for the new millennium," and who has his own line of beauty products that ... well, look at his last name and you figure it out. If I put the names in, my journal will get locked down.
And he sings with Liza Minnelli, shortly before her first trip to rehab, so I suspect that it might have been a challenging job.
On the other hand, the pairing makes perfect sense if you consider that Alan Cumming played the Scarecrow (sort of) in Tin Man and Liza Minnelli's mom had a minor role in the 1939 remake of the 1925 classic "Wizard of Oz", starring Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodman (sort of).
And, just to tie this back to the song, Zooey Deschanel played Dorothy (sort of) in Tin Man alongside Cumming, and performed "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Will Ferrell in Elf.
And Zooey was in HHGTTG with Alan Rickman, who, to the best of my knowledge, has never recorded this song, but did threaten to cancel Christmas in Robin Hood: Prince of the Thieves and who turned down the main villain role in Goldeneye, the same Bond movie that featured Alan Cumming and Famke Janssen.
(Sorry, I was stretching for a Hitchhiker's tie-in there.)
Wikipedia has a list of the recordings of "Baby, It's Cold Outside". It was first sung in the 1949 movie Neptune's Daughter, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. But that's not the best part. The best part is that it was sung in the movie twice, first by Esther Williams and RICARDO MONTALBAN, and then by Betty Garrett and Red Skelton!
(As I typed that paragraph, the song popped up on Music Choice, but it isn't the SD/CM version nor is it the KHAN!!!! version. It's Vanessa Williams and Bobby Caldwell.)
Other great duets on "Baby":
- Oliver Reed and Joyce Blair. Odds that Ollie was sober during the recording: 1,000,000 to 1.
- Barry Manilow and K.T. Oslin. That's a really random pairing.
- Ann-Margret and Brian Setzer. That's a really, really random pairing.
- Rod Stewart and Dolly Parton. I heard this one yesterday. It really doesn't work.
- Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey. Terrell Owens hates this version.
- Sigourney Weaver and Buster Poindexter on Saturday Night Live.
There are two pairings that deserve special attention. First, there's Dean Martin and Martina McBride, recorded by mixing Dean's solo version from 1959 with Martina singing in 2006. Putting aside the creepy duet-with-dead-people thing, why was there a 1959 solo version to begin with? Dean Martin couldn't find a woman to record the song with him in 1959?!?
Then there's Alan Cumming and Liza Minnelli. First, we have Alan Cumming - a man that has played a James Bond villain, Nightcrawler (teaming with Famke Janssen both times), Fegan Floop and Hitler, was once described as "a frolicky pan-sexual sex symbol for the new millennium," and who has his own line of beauty products that ... well, look at his last name and you figure it out. If I put the names in, my journal will get locked down.
And he sings with Liza Minnelli, shortly before her first trip to rehab, so I suspect that it might have been a challenging job.
On the other hand, the pairing makes perfect sense if you consider that Alan Cumming played the Scarecrow (sort of) in Tin Man and Liza Minnelli's mom had a minor role in the 1939 remake of the 1925 classic "Wizard of Oz", starring Oliver Hardy as the Tin Woodman (sort of).
And, just to tie this back to the song, Zooey Deschanel played Dorothy (sort of) in Tin Man alongside Cumming, and performed "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Will Ferrell in Elf.
And Zooey was in HHGTTG with Alan Rickman, who, to the best of my knowledge, has never recorded this song, but did threaten to cancel Christmas in Robin Hood: Prince of the Thieves and who turned down the main villain role in Goldeneye, the same Bond movie that featured Alan Cumming and Famke Janssen.
(Sorry, I was stretching for a Hitchhiker's tie-in there.)
"Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" just came on the Music Choice Holiday channel, performed by something called "Kidz Bop Kids".
(![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
aiela has informed me that "Kidz Bop Kids" is apparently a group of kids who do the "Kidz Bop" CDs, and not, as I had supposed, Jamie Lynn Spears' new band.)
Anyway, I've decided that there are some Christmas songs that have been done so well by certain artists that there should be a ban on any more versions. This song, for instance, belongs to U2. No one is ever going to top their version, and people should stop trying. No one other than Band Aid should have ever recorded "Do They Know Its Christmas?".
(By the way, I love that song, but could someone explain why a charity song included the line "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you"? Isn't that a wee bit, well, selfish?)
Burl Ives gets "Frosty" and Gene Autry gets "Rudolph". Those are easy.
Gloria Estefan gets "White Christmas" because it amuses me to hear a native Cuban singing about longing for the snow she knew as a child. Johnny Mathis gets "Silver Bells". My favorite sixth cousin, Celine Dion, gets "The Christmas Song". Really. She did an incredible version of it. Bob Seger gets "Little Drummer Boy".
No one ever gets to sing "I Want a Rhinoceros For Christmas" or "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". No one. Ever. I'm serious about this. Eartha Kitt gets "Santa Baby", but only in small doses, and there will be fines and/or jail time for any more remakes of it.
Speaking of which, there will also be heavy punishments for anyone who plays "My Favorite Things" as a Christmas song. It isn't a Christmas song just because it mentions Christmas in passing.
(In the 2008, the review board will be taking a hard look at "Last Christmas", which is not really in the spirit of the season.)
Charlotte Church gets "Silent Night", apparently. It just came on. Damn.
And, of course, Rasheed Wallace gets "Jingle Bells":
(
aiela has informed me that "Kidz Bop Kids" is apparently a group of kids who do the "Kidz Bop" CDs, and not, as I had supposed, Jamie Lynn Spears' new band.)Anyway, I've decided that there are some Christmas songs that have been done so well by certain artists that there should be a ban on any more versions. This song, for instance, belongs to U2. No one is ever going to top their version, and people should stop trying. No one other than Band Aid should have ever recorded "Do They Know Its Christmas?".
(By the way, I love that song, but could someone explain why a charity song included the line "Well, tonight thank God it's them instead of you"? Isn't that a wee bit, well, selfish?)
Burl Ives gets "Frosty" and Gene Autry gets "Rudolph". Those are easy.
Gloria Estefan gets "White Christmas" because it amuses me to hear a native Cuban singing about longing for the snow she knew as a child. Johnny Mathis gets "Silver Bells". My favorite sixth cousin, Celine Dion, gets "The Christmas Song". Really. She did an incredible version of it. Bob Seger gets "Little Drummer Boy".
No one ever gets to sing "I Want a Rhinoceros For Christmas" or "Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer". No one. Ever. I'm serious about this. Eartha Kitt gets "Santa Baby", but only in small doses, and there will be fines and/or jail time for any more remakes of it.
Speaking of which, there will also be heavy punishments for anyone who plays "My Favorite Things" as a Christmas song. It isn't a Christmas song just because it mentions Christmas in passing.
(In the 2008, the review board will be taking a hard look at "Last Christmas", which is not really in the spirit of the season.)
Charlotte Church gets "Silent Night", apparently. It just came on. Damn.
And, of course, Rasheed Wallace gets "Jingle Bells":
