Christmas Song #17:

Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans--The Bells Of St. Mary



This whole thing might have been an elaborate excuse to post a crapton of songs from Phil Spector's Christmas album.

And believe me, I will. This is going to be the first day of three that I devote to the record. Deal with it.

And I'm going to try to not to delve too much into hyperbole here, but it's going to happen anyway. And the reason is this: Phil Spector's A Christmas Gift For You is not just a great Christmas album, but a great album period. At the height of the producer's powers, it was decided that a Christmas album was to be made in his usual grandiose and overwhelming style. The result is a bunch of Christmas songs that sound endlessly exciting, overblown, and close to his ideal of creating symphonies for the mass teenage public.

Seriously, it's an album where just about every song could have been a massive single. And--being released in 1963--it's probably one of the first instances in the young history of rock music of an album being put together as an "album", rather than hits surrounded by a bunch of filler. You know, a good year or so before the Beatles did it and popularized it. And it's got an overarching theme too! I mean, the theme is "Christmas"... so that's really not that impressive. But it's a cohesive unit tied together with the wonderful production job by Mr. Spector.

And that's in essence why I love it. It's exciting and fun, and makes me yearn for the days where the month was the most glorious time I could ever imagine. And it's familiar for me (as it should be for anyone who grew up having their parents play the oldies station all the time), which honestly might just be the largest reason it's my favorite, since I'm more likely to turn to old favorites round this time.

So anyway. Quick breakdown: of the artists involved here, Darlene Love gets the most songs with 4, while The Ronettes and The Crystals get 3 and Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans only get 2. But Mr. Soxx (which... in case you didn't guess, isn't his real name) at least gets off one of the best of the bunch with "The Bells Of St. Mary." Which is a song I haven't heard much outside of this version... which is probably because I'm assuming no other version needs to exist.

I don't know how to describe the song other than it's your typical "Wall of Sound" production, except holiday-ized. You know, bells get included in the mix along with the glockenspiels, the booming drums, the strings and the horns and every other thing under the sun. I will mention how I love how Bob B. Soxx just essentially shouts during random intervals, and that I love how the drums become progressively more dominant and crazier as the song goes along.

The string arrangement is great too. Basically, everything about this is great, and I might have to reconsider our friendship if you do not share the same opinion.

BONUS SONG:



The Crystals--Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Because I'm covering every other group on the album except these gals. And it's one of the more familiar songs, as this gets played constantly on the Christmas stations. It's good, you know... maybe not as great as others, but you know. 5 or 6th out of 13th is still a respectable finish.