In my continuing quest to share offbeat/creative music (and other stuff…) with the BB/Prospero community, here’s this:
(If there is any problem viewing / hearing this music, it can also be accessed by clicking this link.)
* Personnel:
Composition, Trumpet: Miles Davis;
Lyrics, Vocals, Piano: Bob Dorough;
Arrangement/Orchestration: Gil Evans;
Trombone: Frank Rehak;
Tenor saxophone: Wayne Shorter;
Bass: Paul Chambers;
Drums: Jimmy Cobb;
Bongos: Willie Bobo.
* Lyrics:
Merry Christmas
I hope you have a white one, but for me, it’s blue
Blue Christmas, that’s the way you see it when you’re feeling blue
Blue Xmas, when you’re blue at Christmastime
you see right through,
All the waste, all the sham, all the haste
and plain old bad taste
Sidewalk Santy Clauses are much, much, much too thin
They’re wearing fancy rented costumes, false beards and big fat phony grins
And nearly everybody’s standing round holding out their empty hand or tin cup
Gimme gimme gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme
Fill my stocking up
All the way up
It’s a time when the greedy give a dime to the needy
Blue Christmas, all the paper, tinsel and the fal-de-ral
Blue Xmas, people trading gifts that matter not at all
What I call
Fal-de-ral
Bitter gall…….Fal-de-ral
Lots of hungry, homeless children in your own backyards
While you’re very, very busy addressing
Twenty zillion Christmas cards
Now, Yuletide is the season to receive and oh, to give and ahh, to share
But all you December do-gooders rush around and rant and rave and loudly blare
Merry Christmas
I hope yours is a bright one, but for me, it’s blue…
________
* Some online versions of the lyrics note the last two words as “it bleeds”; on recordings, these words are hard to make out – perhaps they were purposely obscured…