Honorable Mentions

The 12 days of Christmas are starting a bit earlier than planned. Hey, this narrowing down bit is tough!
Without further ado, my honorable mentions are:

The Christmas Song by Nat King Cole
Auld Lang Syne by James Taylor

The Christmas Song
What Christmas song list could go without Nat King Cole's Classic? It's hard to believe that this song is almost 70 years old...and was written during the summer of 1944. The lyrics came about from the author while in southern California as a means of cooling off using word association. Fill in the blanks, jot the music, run it by your best friend Nat King Cole and whoalla! You now have probably the most easily identifiable Christmas song written in the 20th century. Anyone worth a lick at "Name That Tune" should be able to name that tune in 4 notes or less :)

Auld Lang Syne
No doubt an older song. If it sounds like a song that should be sung as the bar closes up for the night that is because it was. An old Irish tune in fact. Singing about relationships come and gone, friendships, etc. I LOVE this song as it slows me down and makes me reflect on days gone by and helps me think about how I will view today 30 years from now. I ask many questions of myself, but the two most commonly thought of 1) Did I make God smile today and 2) Did what I do today matter in the long-term or did I squander this day.

This time of year I tend to become a recluse and go into reflection mode. Thanksgiving, birthday, Christmas and New Year's all take place in about 40 days within each other. Auld Lang Syne helps me take time to start this process.

As I go through these songs, most people who read this will have no doubt head most if not all of the songs I mention. I challenge you though to listen to the specific versions that I list though. Some of these upcoming songs are going to be a lot fresher sounding that what you've heard before, while some of them are the traditional versions because they old way is still the best one recorded (in my opinion of course!)

 Feedback is always welcome!