It's Christmas morning. What better way to celebrate than ten versions of one of the very best Christmas songs ever written... and they're all worth a listen.
In the sitcom Roseanne, she had two daughters: Becky and Darlene. No score at tennis is Love.
Happy Christmas to everyone who's ever visited this page, whether you're here every day or you just strayed here by accident and couldn't get away. Every visit, every comment, keeps me going. In more ways that you'd think. Take care of yourselves. Have a good one (whatever that might mean to you).
Far more column inches would be devoted to Phil Spector's musical legacy this week... had the rest of his life been so filled with ignominy.
How often do you get to use a word like ignominy? The chance to do so was the final tipping point in my decision to compile this Top Ten. Little Stevie Van Zandt put it best earlier this week...
RIP Phil Spector. A genius irredeemably conflicted, he was the ultimate example of the Art always being better than the Artist, having made some of the greatest records in history based on the salvation of love while remaining incapable of giving or receiving love his whole life.
Let's put aside Spector the man and remember instead some of his finest creations...
A much-derided album, described by Rolling Stone as "the world's most flamboyant extrovert producing and arranging the world's most fatalist introvert" and by Leonard Cohen himself as "grotesque". It's not among my favourite Lenny records and parts of it plain don't work, but the title track (and a couple of others) are mesmerising if you devote enough time to them.
Some people don't like this song because of the whole "Krishna, Krishna" bit. Others call to attention the court case where Harrison was sued for "subconsciously" ripping off He's So Fine by The Chiffons. But people are generally wrong, I find, and this song never grows old.
The forgotten entry in Spector's back catalogue, yet still achingly beautiful. I remember reading a review of this album when it was re-issued in 2001, hunting it down and falling head over heels in love.
If aliens picked up transmissions from earth and these two songs were what they heard, they'd leave us alone because clearly we are a superior civilization.
Imagine having these three songs in your back catalogue and not being as big a household name as The Beatles, The Stones or David Bowie? There is no justice in the world.
