While I Am Out and About, a Question to Keep You Occupied

It is:

A musical artist/band of your choosing will cover a holiday song also of your choosing (that they have not, to your knowledge, already covered). Which musician and which song do you choose?

For me:

Robert Smith and the Cure, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”

Your turn.

180 Comments on “While I Am Out and About, a Question to Keep You Occupied”

  1. John Lennon playing “Still alive”. Choice does not depend on Christmas or other time of year ;-).

  2. Metallic doing a mashup of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” and “Enter Sandman.” Preferably with the SFO backing them to make it really creepy.

  3. The Electric Mayhem covering the Carol of the Drums. Or, really, The Electric Mayhem covering anything.

    Alternate question: is there any song that would not be made more awesome if it were covered by The Mayhem?

  4. Well, since you mentioned him…I could die happy if I heard Robert Smith of the Cure and Siouxsie Sioux from the Banshees do “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” as a duet.

  5. Given the bang up job Nick Lowe does with “Children Go Where I Send Thee” on his new Christmas album, I’d like him to take a crack at “Last Month of the Year.”

  6. Everything is better when covered by The Electric Mayhem. Myself, I’d really love to hear them do Silent Night.

  7. “Hooray for Santy Claus” (from Santa Claus Conquers the Martians) by the Dropkick Murphys.

  8. Moxy Früvous covering Good King Wenceslas. Possibly Good King of Spain Wenceslas. Or more seriously, Moxy Früvous covering pretty much any Christmas song.

  9. Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf, produced by Jim Steinman, on “O Holy Night”.

    Jann Arden on “Blue Christmas”.

    Maybe Nick Cave on “We Three Kings”.

  10. I like Mathew E’s Tyloer/Loaf/Seinman suggestion!

    I would go for Rush covering Greg Lake’s “I Believe in Father Christmas.”

  11. @Gary Willis: I think YES’s cover of the Hallelujah Chorus would end up being about as long as the entire Messiah. ;)

  12. So many choices…

    So, the Red Hot Chili Peppers covering the excellent Tim Minchin’s White Wine in the Sun.

    Venom’s Black Christmas already exists but maybe Deicide or Emperor and the audible torture that is Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe and Wine.

    Because I’m Welsh, Bonnie Tyler singing Silent Night in Welsh (Tawel Y Nos). Also, Rammstein singing it in German would be good too.

  13. Keith R. A. DeCandido – “Tom Waits doing ‘The Little Drummer Boy.’ “

    Holy Carp KRAD! I came here to post exactly that.

    Seriously, would love to hear that gravelly “Pa rum pum pum pum.”

  14. I don’t think he’s a musical artist, but… Tom Mison, ‘Veni Veni Emmanuel’ a cappella. It -must- be the Latin. I have my reasons. >.>

  15. Foo Fighters doing *any* Christmas song would be pretty sweet, but I’d especially like to hear their take on “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”.

  16. I’d want the Civil Wars to do “O Little Town of Bethlehem” as I think they could do a really haunting version of it.

  17. Skinny Puppy doing “Oh, Holy Night”

    Dimmu Borgir doing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”

  18. People have already hit everything I have up, but still:

    GWAR – 12 days of Christmas. I hate that song with a passion and need to hear what gets done with it.

    Having said that, “A Musicological Journey through the 12 Days of Christmas” is – incredible.

    For serious, though, Johnette Napolitano (with or without Concrete Blonde): The Coventry Carol. I don’t know why I’m drawn to the darker side of the Chrismas Story – maybe the view of redemption in it – I also have an attachment to “I Heard the Bells”.

  19. Well, I was going to go with GWAR “Silent Night”, but that ground is well-trodden at this point. So I’m thinking Insane Clown Posse, “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

  20. Hmmmmm?

    Perhaps Snog doing a remake of The Wiggles memorable Christmas melody “The Turkey Jumps Right Out of the Pie.”

  21. Well, we already got Heaven & Hell doing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen & Run Rudolph Run by Lemmy, so I’ll just have to go with Dream Theater doing “Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24)” by Trans Siberian Orchestra.

  22. “Fairytale of New York” featuring Richard and Linda Thompson. Or the Captain and Tennille.

  23. I’ve seen a few mentions of “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” which can of course be taken in a particular way, so I’d go all out: Nick Cave and…oh, I don’t know, Pink.

    For something a little different: the Bing Crosby/David Bowie “Little Drummer Boy,” with Bowie taking the Crosby part and Ryan Tedder, maybe, on the Bowie part.

    I’m curious as to what a full-out Lady Gaga production of Carol of the Bells would be like.

  24. @Jason I am counting on YES’s cover of the Hallelujah chorus being as long as the entire Messiah. Everything they do has such symphonic qualities.

  25. I’d like to hear Steam-Powered Giraffe cover “Carol of the Bells” or “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree”.

  26. OK, now I just want a Murphys Christmas album. They would do strange and wonderful things with “Adeste Fidelis.”

  27. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer by Hammerfall. (Or Sabaton, or Dream Evil; any collection of long-haired Swedes in black and rivets.)

    I would shed a single metal tear, if I ever got to hear that.

  28. Richard Thompson – I’ll Be Home for Christmas

    That will probably leave me depressed as all hell, so, as a palate cleanser:

    Queen – I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas

  29. Pearl Jam–Mahler 9 (Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony)

    Alternatively, Pearl Jam–Beethoven 9.

    :P

  30. @Johnny

    How about Michael Bolton doing “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer?” lulz…

  31. Max Raabe and Palastorchester doing Santa Baby.

    Megan Washington doing It came Upon a Midnight Clear.

  32. I’d really like to hear Coldplay take a shot at The Blue Nile “Family Life” and Take 6 do John Renbourn’s “Wexford Lullaby”.

  33. Tyler/Loaf/Steinman doing an entire Xmas album. Ditto YES (it would have to be a double or quadruple album). And of course the Electric Mayhem.

    I’d like “Fairytale of New York” done by any combo of treacly Christian or tween pop singers/groups. Just to watch the fan/media reaction. And Shane’s.

    You know that a lot of those people with goody-two-shoes reputations only keep them up in public for sales reasons; some of them would LOVE to sing a proper grown up song about booze and sex and fookin’.

  34. So many cool ideas floating around!

    I’ma go with Nick Cave’s take on “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”

    …or a Rush version of “Little Drummer Boy,” because Neil Peart would own it and it would be glorious!

  35. Several possible answers.

    For funs, The definitive version of Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer could only be performed by Trailer Choir.

    For reals, Dave Brubeck’s “Jingle Bells” is the only real Jingle Bells; all others are its pale shadows.

    For something I think would just be awesome, Pink on “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,” especially if it includes the “O ye beneath …” verse.

    And for something that would be a bit beyond anything else ever heard, Bob Dylan sings “The Christmas Song” in electric-folk mode, so that all the images come out sounding like the hallucinatory/menacing/paranoid ones in “Highway 61 Revisited” or “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” (“Jack Frost nip-ping at YOUR NOSE!” “Folks dressed up like Eskimos!”)

  36. Okay, the Christmas song for me is “Jolly Old Christmas Time” by Weddings Parties Anything (which contains immortal lines such as “It’s pissing down rain and it’s thirty-two” and “I’m shit-faced on sherry and passionfruit-flavoured wine” and really does convey a lot of the little… joys of an Australian Christmas season) and I’d love to see it either performed by the Angels (good old Australian pub rockers) or Cold Chisel (ditto; they had their own not-so-happy Christmas song in “Home and Broken-Hearted”).

    Alternatively, I’d love to hand it to Elvis Costello and the Chieftains, who did a wonderful job with “The St Stephen’s Day Murders”.

    (I blame my Chrimble tune choice on ten years working retail).

  37. Seanan McGuire (and whichever of her minions she wishes to acquire) doing anything, straight or filked, but especially December of Cambreadth (Kanafsky/Alexander).
    (…actually, McGuire doing this with Alexander James Adams himself would be kind of awesome. Unless they dislike each other for some reason unbeknownst to me, of course.)

  38. @ DigitalAtheist

    Halford actually has covered “What Child Is This?”. . . albeit under his self titled band name rather than as Judas Priest. . .

    also. . .We Three Kings by Blind Guardian and Little Drummer Boy by the Wicked Tinkers

  39. I will get coal in my stocking for this but I just can’t resist……

    Megyn Kelly singing “I Dreaming of a White Christmas”

  40. Jason Isbell doing “O Come Immanuel” or “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” (though I liked the suggestion of Pink for the latter as well).

    And totally agree with They Might Be Giants doing “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Hopefully they could work in some of their own ideas for gifts, like prosthetic foreheads (everybody wants one!)

  41. I’d be up for Miles Davis doing White Christmas too, but….

    Michael Penn: What Child is This? (Particularly Verse 2.)

  42. This list sounds far more interesting than many of the holiday CD’s I’ve seen for sale this year….

    I would add Nickel Creek covering The Wexford Carol.

  43. Grateful Dead performing “A Glorious “Dark” Star from Heav’n Appeared” then turn into St. Stephen…

  44. I want to hear Bikini Kill do a take on “Santa Baby”. They should feel free to tweak the lyrics.

  45. Cat Power – Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel

    I’m not even sure it would work but I think it suits her. At least it suits her pre-Sun.

  46. Nirvana doing “Angels We Have Heard On High”. I’d LOVE to hear what Kurt Cobain could have done with the “gloooooria” bit!

    In more general terms I must say I am quite impressed with the musical tastes of Whatever readers (with a few exceptions). And by ‘impressed’ I mean of course ‘closely resembles my own tastes’ :)

  47. Madonna – Silent Night (Like a Round Yon Virgin). Hey, it’s been a while since Madge has done something to really annoy Christians. She’s overdue.

  48. Tom Milsom covering “We Need a Little Christmas,” making it sound even more like bad handling of a brief manic episode emerging from a long depression.

  49. Robyn Hitchcock doing “Frosty the Snowman;” the man has a way with songs about the inanimate becoming sentient.

  50. Oh man, I travel for a week, and miss all the good stuff!

    For the record, I hate Christmas music. Three submissions!

    Gwar cover’s “Oh Holy Night,”
    Meshuggah covers “Little Drummer Boy.”
    The Dwarves cover “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause”

    Fer the lulz…

  51. Tom Waits doing Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”
    X doing “The Little Drummer Boy”
    Carrie Underwood attempting The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.”

  52. Since we’re wishing, I’ll just bring the Ramones back from the dead to play Feliz Navidad, with Dick Dale making a guest appearance for the guitar solo.

  53. Ken Nordine doing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence” could be deeply creepy in a good way.

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