Multiple Mondays: River

Today you get eight versions of painter-turned-music-legend Joni Mitchell's (fansite wiki AMG) 1971 "River." She first started singing by belting out Christmas carols in a children's hospital. By 1971 she was in California, missing the winters of Canada and writing a "selfish and sad" paean to the end of a relationship.

I don't have a lot to say about this song, except that I had planned at one point to include every single one of these versions on this year's compilation, Have Yourself A Depressing Little Christmas. (Watch this space -- I'm posting it soon!) Also, I acquired almost all of these from BoyHowdy at his legendary coverblog Cover Lay Down. If I ever get around to putting together a blogroll, he's in the top three.

These songs are, in the approximate order you might want to listen, by Joni Mitchell, Tori Amos (live), Peter Mulvey, Rachael Yamagata, Angus Stone, Sarah McLachlan, Allison Crowe, and Travis.

Zipfile
Buy Joni's version from Amazon -- from Deep Discount

Have Yourself A Mellow Little Christmas

Here's the second of 2006's two Christmas mixes I compiled. The mixes from '06 and '07 (stay tuned!) don't have covers uploaded, since I made all the covers by hand with paper cutouts and stickers and such. I'll probably put together covers for this year's two mixes, though I'm planning to continue with the handmade covers for the hardcopies my friends get.

Now, for about as long as they've existed, I've been a fairly faithful reader of two music blogs: You Ain't No Picasso and WFMU's Beware Of The Blog. But until December '06, I hadn't bothered to explore the rest of the MP3 blogosphere. Christmas music changed all that. For the first December in recent memory, my job didn't entail dealing on a personal level with enraged customers eight hours every single day, which meant that the ever-elusive "spirit of the season" was a lot easier to find. And, when I wasn't forced to listen to Christmas music on my employer's radio station, I found that I kind of missed it. So during that month, I downloaded more than a gig of Christmas music from all the assorted MP3 blogs out there. Some of them became my new best friends, and some I only visit each December. That's why this blog owes its very existence to Christmas music. (Well, that, and my collection of "Stagger Lee.")

Tracklist:

01. Aimee Mann - The Christmas Song
02. Combusible Edison - Christmastime Is Here
03. Diana Ross and The Supremes - White Christmas
04. Simon and Garfunkel - Comfort and Joy
05. Tom Waits - Silent Night
06. Enya - Oiche Chiun (Silent Night)
07. Pedro The Lion - I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
08. Belle and Sebastian - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
09. Dayna Manning - It's In Every One Of Us
10. The Coctails - First Snowfall
11. Math and Physics Club - Marshmallow World
12. The Beach Boys - Morning Christmas
13. Sarah McLachlan - Song For A Winter's Night
14. Travis - River
15. Chris Isaak - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Zip file