We are now closer to Christmas 2023 than we are to Christmas 2022, and that means Christmas In July is just around the corner!
Last year on the Sounds of Christmas podcast, I hosted what I called a podcastpalooza for Christmas In July, inviting on lots of other Christmas podcasters to talk about their podcasts and share their love for the season.
This year, I wanted to do something different. Something with the Sounds of Christmas station. Something I haven’t ever done, not since I launched the Sounds of Christmas back in 2007.
Starting on July 1st, I’ll be giving you the Sounds of Christmas A to Z, playing almost every song in our library in alphabetical order. This is by song title, not by artist. And, at this point, I honestly have no idea how long it will go on. I can tell you that it takes over 13 hours just to get through all the songs that start with A.
So, a couple things about this.
First, I took my master library list and put it in a Google doc, then I set it to alphabetize all the entries by song title. For the most part, I think this worked okay. In some instances, punctuation in the song titles made it tricky. Sometimes, I was able to move those songs around where they made the most sense, but that probably wasn’t always the case. So you may hear a song that seems out of place, and that could be the reason.
Or it could be other things. Sometimes artists change the name of a song they’re covering. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas becomes, simply, A Merry Little Christmas. My Grown Up Christmas List becomes just Grown Up Christmas List. And Run Rudolph Run is sometimes listed as Run Run Rudolph. I’m sure there are plenty of others, but those are the ones that leap to mind.
I tried to deal with that as best I could, but this was a huge undertaking, and there may have been some I missed. Another reason that, upon occasion, there may be a song that seems out of place.
Also, I’m not playing every different version of every single song. I did consider that in the beginning, and thought it might be interesting to hear so many different artists with their own interpretations of each song. Then I realized that, if I did that, there would be over nine hours of different versions of “Silver Bells”.
I like “Silver Bells. A lot. Maybe even more than most. But I don’t think I would listen to nine hours of it.
So I went through and picked one version of songs like that to kind of represent the song. A couple times, when I had some versions of a particular song that were so different from each other, almost like they were completely different songs, I chose to play more than one. And sometimes I played an instrumental along with a vocal version of the same song. I tried not to play two versions of the same song that sounded very similar. But there were a couple times I found it hard to choose, so I included both.
And I included Chanukah and New Years songs, but I took out the Thanksgiving songs and Halloween songs. And I only included the first version of Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song.
For songs that started with numbers, I simply spelled out the numbers, and you’ll find them accordingly.
I included lots of medleys, and some of the songs included in those will be found elsewhere in the entire A to Z event. I went back and forth on this, and finally decided that medleys are quite possibly more popular in Christmas music than in any other genre, so excluding them just seemed wrong.
I may have made some mistakes. This was a much bigger undertaking than I originally thought it would be. So some songs might come up in the wrong place. Some songs might play more than once. And some might not show up at all. None of that is on purpose. Just human error. My apologies if there’s a song you want to hear and somehow it doesn’t show up.
I also get that you may not agree with the choices I make as far as which version of a particular song gets played. In most cases, I picked the more obvious choice, but a couple times I shook things up a little to pick something you might not expect.
I know that this isn’t for everybody. When some people listen to Christmas music, they want Bing’s “White Christmas”. They want Nat King Cole and Elvis. For others it’s Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson. And while all of those artists do appear, more than once, in the Sounds of Christmas from A to Z, it will take a while to get to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”. And if you miss Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” on that first day, you won’t get to hear it again until we get back to regular programming.
But, if you love Christmas music, all kinds of Christmas music, you’ll get a real taste of what I mean when I say the Sounds of Christmas plays the best variety of Christmas music. You’ll hear lots of songs you may never have heard before, and you’ll hear lots of artists that you may have never heard before, either. But I think you’re going to like it (at least I hope you do)!
I’ll probably send periodic updates through social media to let you know where we are as the month of July rolls on (and possibly August).
I’m set to kick this off on July 1st with Faith Hill’s “A Baby Changes Everything”, and then keep on going until at some point we get to “Zuzu’s Petals” by the group Lunch At Allen’s. If it only takes a couple weeks, I’ll probably repeat it. I have a feeling it will take a lot longer than that, but since I’m still programming it all, I really don’t know. I guess we’ll find out together.
Anyway, despite all the caveats and possible mistakes, I hope the whole thing is fun, and that, if you do tune in, you like what you hear.
Last year on the Sounds of Christmas podcast, I hosted what I called a podcastpalooza for Christmas In July, inviting on lots of other Christmas podcasters to talk about their podcasts and share their love for the season.
This year, I wanted to do something different. Something with the Sounds of Christmas station. Something I haven’t ever done, not since I launched the Sounds of Christmas back in 2007.
Starting on July 1st, I’ll be giving you the Sounds of Christmas A to Z, playing almost every song in our library in alphabetical order. This is by song title, not by artist. And, at this point, I honestly have no idea how long it will go on. I can tell you that it takes over 13 hours just to get through all the songs that start with A.
So, a couple things about this.
First, I took my master library list and put it in a Google doc, then I set it to alphabetize all the entries by song title. For the most part, I think this worked okay. In some instances, punctuation in the song titles made it tricky. Sometimes, I was able to move those songs around where they made the most sense, but that probably wasn’t always the case. So you may hear a song that seems out of place, and that could be the reason.
Or it could be other things. Sometimes artists change the name of a song they’re covering. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas becomes, simply, A Merry Little Christmas. My Grown Up Christmas List becomes just Grown Up Christmas List. And Run Rudolph Run is sometimes listed as Run Run Rudolph. I’m sure there are plenty of others, but those are the ones that leap to mind.
I tried to deal with that as best I could, but this was a huge undertaking, and there may have been some I missed. Another reason that, upon occasion, there may be a song that seems out of place.
Also, I’m not playing every different version of every single song. I did consider that in the beginning, and thought it might be interesting to hear so many different artists with their own interpretations of each song. Then I realized that, if I did that, there would be over nine hours of different versions of “Silver Bells”.
I like “Silver Bells. A lot. Maybe even more than most. But I don’t think I would listen to nine hours of it.
So I went through and picked one version of songs like that to kind of represent the song. A couple times, when I had some versions of a particular song that were so different from each other, almost like they were completely different songs, I chose to play more than one. And sometimes I played an instrumental along with a vocal version of the same song. I tried not to play two versions of the same song that sounded very similar. But there were a couple times I found it hard to choose, so I included both.
And I included Chanukah and New Years songs, but I took out the Thanksgiving songs and Halloween songs. And I only included the first version of Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song.
For songs that started with numbers, I simply spelled out the numbers, and you’ll find them accordingly.
I included lots of medleys, and some of the songs included in those will be found elsewhere in the entire A to Z event. I went back and forth on this, and finally decided that medleys are quite possibly more popular in Christmas music than in any other genre, so excluding them just seemed wrong.
I may have made some mistakes. This was a much bigger undertaking than I originally thought it would be. So some songs might come up in the wrong place. Some songs might play more than once. And some might not show up at all. None of that is on purpose. Just human error. My apologies if there’s a song you want to hear and somehow it doesn’t show up.
I also get that you may not agree with the choices I make as far as which version of a particular song gets played. In most cases, I picked the more obvious choice, but a couple times I shook things up a little to pick something you might not expect.
I know that this isn’t for everybody. When some people listen to Christmas music, they want Bing’s “White Christmas”. They want Nat King Cole and Elvis. For others it’s Mariah Carey and Kelly Clarkson. And while all of those artists do appear, more than once, in the Sounds of Christmas from A to Z, it will take a while to get to Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”. And if you miss Mariah’s “All I Want For Christmas Is You” on that first day, you won’t get to hear it again until we get back to regular programming.
But, if you love Christmas music, all kinds of Christmas music, you’ll get a real taste of what I mean when I say the Sounds of Christmas plays the best variety of Christmas music. You’ll hear lots of songs you may never have heard before, and you’ll hear lots of artists that you may have never heard before, either. But I think you’re going to like it (at least I hope you do)!
I’ll probably send periodic updates through social media to let you know where we are as the month of July rolls on (and possibly August).
I’m set to kick this off on July 1st with Faith Hill’s “A Baby Changes Everything”, and then keep on going until at some point we get to “Zuzu’s Petals” by the group Lunch At Allen’s. If it only takes a couple weeks, I’ll probably repeat it. I have a feeling it will take a lot longer than that, but since I’m still programming it all, I really don’t know. I guess we’ll find out together.
Anyway, despite all the caveats and possible mistakes, I hope the whole thing is fun, and that, if you do tune in, you like what you hear.
I’m set to kick this off on July 1st with Faith Hill’s “A Baby Changes Everything”, and then keep on going until at some point we get to “Zuzu’s Petals” by the group Lunch At Allen’s. If it only takes a couple weeks, I’ll probably repeat it. I have a feeling it will take a lot longer than that, but since I’m still programming it all, I really don’t know. I guess we’ll find out together.
Anyway, despite all the caveats and possible mistakes, I hope the whole thing is fun, and that, if you do tune in, you like what you hear.
Thanks again. And may you always believe in Santa Claus.
Anyway, despite all the caveats and possible mistakes, I hope the whole thing is fun, and that, if you do tune in, you like what you hear.
Thanks again. And may you always believe in Santa Claus.
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