My, my, look at the time. It’s already December 12th! Time for 12 Days of Holiday Music That Doesn’t Suck! Tempus certainly does fugit.

Here in Houston we have one radio station which plays Christmas music and has labeled itself “Houston’s Holiday Music Station, Especially the Same Tired Carols Over and Over Again and Seventeen Different Versions of ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.'”

Okay, I might have added everything after the comma myself.

Anyway, they start playing the stuff in November, a little earlier every year, and last year they didn’t even stop until after December 26th. Last year, the holiday music started on November 16th. This year it started on November 6th. I’m not kidding. You’re just going about your business, driving along and flipping through the stations in your car, and then BOOM you hit that one and it’s Rudolph and Frosty when you still have pumpkins out from Hallowe’en.

(Maybe that’s just me? I mean, we don’t carve our pumpkins, so we do keep them out until Thanksgiving as long as they’re still in good shape.)

So, several years ago I decided I needed to post an antidote to the radio’s weary nonsense and its generally narrow rotation of songs, and so on my blog I posted 12 Days of Christmas Music That Doesn’t Suck, and the series became really popular. If you’d like to go back and browse through past years’ playlists, just click on the following links to Day 2 for each year and then follow the links at the bottom of each page to get all the way through each Day 12.

2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018

Now why, you might be asking, do I suggest you start with Day 2? Good question.

Because it has become my tradition to honor my absolutely bonkers-crazy life with the same song each year on Day 1, an ode to the frenetic pace I’ve somehow managed to subject myself to. Maybe also, just perhaps, I love this song because it reminds me that maybe I shouldn’t and cannot keep going at such a velocity. Some health issues I’ve had recently have suggested to me I need a rethink, and I will be devoting no small amount of time and brainspace over the holidays to figuring all of that out.

In the meantime, please enjoy this unbelievably awesome and severely underrated song. (Also, if you pay attention to the bass line, you will notice that this song is notably deeper and more sophisticated than the average pop ditty.)