Special report: 50 best Christmas songs to groove the season
By Our Reporter
Sunday, December 2, 2018 will be the beginning of a new Catholic liturgical year of Advent, heralding the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. From then, it will be officially time to start singing Christmas songs bringing nostalgic feelings of the events in the little hilly town of Bethlehem where Mary was delivered of baby Jesus in a manger more 2000 years ago.
However, Christmas songs aren’t like other songs. It started with carols and now various genres of songs are rendered including pop, soul and reggae by various performers overtime.
Interestingly, Carols were first sung in Europe thousands of years ago, but these were not Christmas Carols. They were pagan songs, sung at the Winter Solstice celebrations as people danced round stone circles. The Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, usually taking place around 22nd December. The word Carol actually means dance or a song of praise and joy! Carols used to be written and sung during all four seasons, but only the tradition of singing them at Christmas has really survived.
Early Christians took over the pagan solstice celebrations for Christmas and gave people Christian songs to sing instead of pagan ones.
In 129, a Roman Bishop said that a song called “Angel’s Hymn” should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Another famous early Christmas Hymn was written in 760, by Comas of Jerusalem, for the Greek Orthodox Church. Soon after this many composers all over Europe started to write ‘Christmas carols’. However, not many people liked them as they were all written and sung in Latin, a language that the normal people couldn’t understand. By the time of the Middles Ages (the 1200s), most people had lost interest in celebrating Christmas altogether.
This was changed by St. Francis of Assisi when, in 1223, he started his Nativity Plays in Italy. The people in the plays sang songs or ‘canticles’ that told the story during the plays. Sometimes, the choruses of these new carols were in Latin; but normally they were all in a language that the people watching the play could understand.
However, Apex News presents to you best 50 groovy Christmas songs to put you in the festive mood.
- ‘Santa Claus’ –The Sonics
- ‘Hey Sis, its Christmas’ – RuPaul
- ‘Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End)’ – The Darkness
- ‘Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight)’ –The Ramones
- ‘It Doesn’t Often Snow at Christmas’ –Pet Shop Boys
- ‘Santa’s Got A Bag Of Soul’ – Soul-Saints Orchestra
- ‘One More Sleep’ – Leona Lewis
43. “I Believe in Father Christmas” –Greg Lake
- ‘Frosty the Snowman’ – Cocteau Twins
- ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ – Diana Ross
40. ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ – Harry Belafonte
- ‘Christmas in Harlem’ –Kanye West featuring Cam’ron, Jim Jones, Vado, Cyhi Da Prynce & Pusha T
- ‘What Christmas Means to Me’ – Stevie Wonder
- ‘Underneath the Tree’ – Kelly Clarkson
- ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ – Slade
- ‘Midnight Sleighride’ – Sauter-Finegan Orchestra
- ‘Just Like Christmas’ – Low
- ‘In Dulce Jubilo’ – Mike Oldfield
- ‘2000 Miles’ – Pretenders
- ‘Put a Little Love in Your Heart’ – Al Green and Annie Lennox
- ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ – Wizzard
- ‘Dear Santa (Bring Me a Man This Christmas)’ –Weather Girls
- ‘Jingle Bell Rock’ – Bobby Helms
- ‘Zat You, Santa Claus?’ – Louis Armstrong
- ‘River’ – Joni Mitchell
- ‘The Little Drummer Boy/Peace on Earth’ – Bing Crosby & David Bowie
- ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ – Sufjan Stevens
- ‘O Tannenbaum’ – Vince Guaraldi Trio
- ‘Run Rudolph Run’ – Chuck Berry
- ‘Sleigh Ride’ – The Ronettes
- ‘8 Days of Christmas’ – Destiny’s Child
- ‘Wonderful Christmas Time’ – Paul McCartney
- ‘Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto’ – James Brown
- ‘Blue Christmas’ – Elvis Presley
- ‘Christmas in Hollis’ – Run-DMC
- ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ – Jackson 5
- ‘Driving Home for Christmas’ – Chris Rea
- ‘Step Into Christmas’ – Elton John
- ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside’ – Dean Martin
- ‘Christmas Rappin’’ – Kurtis Blow
- ‘Merry Christmas Baby’ – Ike and Tina Turner
- ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ – John Lennon & Yoko Ono
- ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ – Brenda Lee
- 7. ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ – Band Aid
- ‘Christmas Wrapping’ – The Waitresses
- ‘Fairytale of New York’ – The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl
- ‘White Christmas’ – Bing Crosby
- ‘Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)’ – Darlene Love
- ‘Last Christmas’ – Wham!
- ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ – Mariah Carey
(With agency reports)