4 versions of "I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus"

I will rapidly try to share a few more Christmas-songs before the Christmas ends. Last year I shared different versions of the same song, and today I give you different old and new versions of "I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus".

* My first choice is a classic recording from 1953 with Margret Bienert . I have a few copies, all pretty worn out. They must have a sold a lot of these, and people must have liked it.

* Lisbeth Bodin was a child actriss and could sing with a childs voice even when she grew older. She appeared in a radio show during the 40ties with American songs, sometimes with Swedish lyrics. My favourite from her production is a song called "There's a cowboy rolling down Kungsgatan" - you get it as a bonus, even though it has nothing with Christmas to do. (The picture at the right shows her together with Henry Lindblom.)

* Heroes is a Swedish skinheadband and their version i rather out of pitch and not very enjoyable, but maybe of some interest. The name of the album is "Easter Sucks Xmas Rules".

* Troll was a girls group that recorded the song in the 80ties. It appears on many of the Christmas collections, and most people in Sweden have heard it.

New favourites this year

Today I want to share some new favourites that I just found this, or sometimes last, year. Unfortunatly I think they will be mostly appreciated by a Swedish audience. But give it a try:

* "Jul i Las Palmas" (Christmas in Las Palmas) with Harry Brandelius. A song about going to a warm country celebrating Christmas with a lot of drinking and prostitutes.

* "En officiell låt för den svenska julen" (the official song for the Swedish Christmas) with Jimmy Nordin and Sören Tallhem. Jimmy Nordin is a shotputter that possibly soon will be more known for his weird records.

* "Julkortslåten" (The song of Christmas Cards) with Lasse and Morgan, a duo that performs for children. This song tells that licking stamps for postcards is tasty and fun, which I really doubt. (This year I haven't sent one single card.)

For those that already downloaded "Christmas in Las Palmas":

By mistake I shared a Wav-file instead of the mp3 that I intended to. I have now replaced it with an mp3 instead (and it has some noise- and click-reduction that was not on the other one).

Discussion about Christmas Music i TV

This night I visited a TV-program to talk about Christmas Music. It's a local show distributed in the Stockholm area (similar programs are shown in other parts of the country as well).

I particularly liked that they showed some videos. Thore Skogman is singing "Klappa på" and the best of all: Don Bennechi and Angelique Widegren with "Jul i Gamla stan" (Christmas in Old Town) with big furcoats in a sleigh, artificial snow and smiling children. They were regular guests in TV-programs for a couple of years but disappeared suddenly after an internal conflict that ended with that she was put in jail for having somebody to get rid of him (the person she hired didn't suceed). He is apparently still an artist and was recently presenting a new single that I still haven't heard.

The program is in Swedish but I worth seeing for the musical parts, try the websajt for Swedish Television-program Eftersnack. The second half of the program is about Christmas Music.

Reposting old links

I also want to tell that I reposted some old links from last year:

* 5 different versions of White Christmas.

* 7 different versions of Jingle Bells.

* Come home for Christmas Daddy

* Christmas at the Brothel

* Homsesick Seamen at Christmas

* Christmas in the Wild West

A tribute to Thore Skogman

In the beginning of December this year we got to know that Thore Skogman is dead. Quite a big thing in Sweden, I don't think there is one single person that can not sing a couple of his songs. The absolute all time champion of fast singing and incredible strange lyrics. A fantastic productivity - he made something like 1 000 songs during his life.

Nobody could write songs about so many odd things as Thore Skogman. We will never forget his songs for advertisements for loafs of bread, learning how to swim, eating rotten fish (Surströmming, a Swedish speciality) etc. Some of the best, and sometimes neglected, ones are about Christmas.

The first one, that I shared already last year, is "Julen är här". It tells about how people are eating too much food and keeps the doctor busy. Kids are fighting about presents, grownups are arguing etc. A tragic event worthy a native of the country known for many suicides, a musical companion of Ingmar Bergman or maybe rather Lars Norén.

The last ones are short songs for dancing around a Christmas tree, he made small changes in the traditional lyrics. If you wonder why the pig starts to fight it's because he doesn't want to get into the car just before Christmas. But suddenly they managed to take him to the butcher after all, sings Thore Skogman as cheerful as ever. Cold ham is a version of Kalinka, the Russian song, Kalinka in Swedish is close to "kall skinka" = cold ham.

* Julen är här (Christmas is here)
* Klappa på (Knock on the door)
* Tomtens renar (Father Christmas Reindeers)
* Två små röda luvor (Two small red hats)
* Skära, skära grisen (Cutting ham)
* Kall skinka (Cold ham)
* Så går vi runt kring ett julgrislår (So we are walking around a pigs leg)
* Ritscht Ratsch
* Hej alla svin (Hello all pigs)
* Grisen börja bråka (The pig started to fight)

Christmasparty at Club Sunkit

Some information for everyone in the Stockholm-area: The yearly Chrimastparty at Club Sunkit (Bröderna Olsson, Folkungagatan) will be Monday 17th of December. It starts at 8 pm, we will be playing music the first one or possible 2 hours (depending on the response and how eager Burt and Magnus are to get on with playing their music).

The day after, Tuesday 18th, I will talk about Christmas Records in Eftersnack, a local talkshow in stately television SVT2 (distributed locally in greater Stockholm area). I think it starts somewhere around 10 pm.

What could be a better choice if you want to celebrate that Christmas is approaching than showing a cover from a Christmas record with the German singer Heino (favourite all year around). Thanks to bizarrerecords.com.