Pop Music

December 21 – Paul Kelly Teaches Us ‘How To Make Gravy’ With New Video For Australian Christmas Classic To Celebrate 25th Anniversary #TheGravySong – Essentially Pop

Published

1 year ago

December 21, 2021

Da Mixx

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Re-released to commemorate its 25th anniversary, Paul Kelly’s ‘How To Make Gravy’ has over that time become an Australian Christmas classic. Originally released on November 4, 1996, the song name-checks today, 21 December, and is sung from the point of view of a man named Joe, who has been incarcerated over the Christmas period, while he’s writing a letter to his family. As Joe recounts all those who will be gathering for the family Christmas, what’s foremost on his mind is, who’s going to make the gravy while he’s on the inside?

Thankfully, he shares his recipe – a genuine one that Kelly was given by his father-in-law – so the family will be able to make it – but, “I bet it won’t taste the same”.

The song was originally written by Kelly after he was approached by Lindsay Field, guitarist and backing vocalist for John Farnham, to perform a Christmas-themed song or carol for ‘The Spirit Of Christmas’, a charity album, raising money for The Salvation Army. When he discovered his song of choice, ‘Christmas Must Be Tonight’ wasn’t available, he decided to write one instead, later recalling,

“I had a rough tune I’d been kicking around with the band at sound check, but was having trouble getting started on the words. Kelly’s inspiration for the lyrics was subsequently drawn from Irving Berlin’s song, ‘White Christmas’, where “Irving intensifies the feeling of Christmas by not being there”.

The song struck a chord with Field, who then asked the Salvation Army’s selection committee to accept it for the album. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Kelly didn’t want to re-record it, and it took some persuading.

“it’s [already] out there. But friends I was talking to about the record – and the band – were really surprised that we weren’t recording it again. We play it so much, it plays us, as much as we play it.”

Paul Kelly has included the song on his new album, ‘Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train’. His 28th studio album, it was released on 19 November, and includes 22 tracks on a double CD set. Paul sings with a diverse range of artists, including Casey Chambers, Vika Bull, Linda Bull, Waleed Aly, and Emma Donovan, and the songs are just as varied, with traditional classics such as ‘Silent Night’, and ‘Little Drummer Boy’ sit alongside ‘Shalom Aleichem’, a Hebrew prayer, here sung by Lior, and ‘Surah Maryam’, a chapter from the Qu’ran which tells Mary’s story, and is recited by Waleed Aly, an Australian writer, lawyer, academic and musician.

Also included on the album is ‘Swing Around The Sun’, by Casey Bennetto, which perfectly captures Christmas in the steaming heat of Australian mid summer, with lyrics such as,

“miles of scrunched-up paper, yards of burning skin

an alcoholic vapour ’round the yellow-lidded bin”

While Australians have long known the feeling of being apart from loved ones scattered across the globe at Christmas time, the song has taken on an extra poignancy these past two years due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. if the song didn’t already bring a tear to your eye, it may well once you watch the new video below, which sees people from all over the world sending their love to their family and friends.

So this Christmas, whether we be in prison, or in the grey drear of the UK mid-winter, or under the burning sun of Australia, or scattered across far corners of the world, far from our families and friends; let’s all come together and with Paul Kelly, make gravy, and plenty of it.

‘Paul Kelly’s Christmas Train’ is available to stream and download here.

Paul Kelly - How To Make Gravy (2021 Version)

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Pop Music

St. Vincent Covers “Funkytown” For Minions: The Rise of Gru

Published

10 months ago

June 3, 2022

DJ Hittman

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Some things in life are inevitable. For a while, that inevitably was a new Shrek movie with an updated pop cover like “I’m a Believer” from Smash Mouth. These days it’s a new Despicable Me movie, this time in the form of spinoff Minions The Rise of Gru. And just as we all predicted, the new Steve Carrell led film comes stacked with a loaded soundtrack headlined by St. Vincent.

For her contribution to the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack, St. Vincent covered “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. Her version was produced by Jack Antonoff and continues a run of luck for the musician that earlier this year saw her win a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album.

Antonoff also gave St. Vincent a shout-out for her album Daddy’s Home when he won Producer of the Year at the Grammys.

Announcing the release of her funky cover, St. Vincent took to Twitter and wrote, “Excited to say the @Minions (including @jackantonoff) and I have just released our version of ‘Funkytown’ from #TheRiseofGru soundtrack. Shout out to Gru and them…” Included with the post was a graphic of St. Vincent as a minion.

Joining St. Vincent on the Minions: The Rise of Gru soundtrack are Tame Impala, Kali Uchis, Brittany Howard, Thundercat, Caroline Polachek, Diana Ross, and Weyes Blood, just to name a few.

The album will be released on July 1, coinciding with the film’s theatrical release. You can listen to St. Vincent’s cover of Lipps Inc. “Funkytown” below!

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Parmalee Shares The Music Video For Their Top Five US Hit ‘Take My Name’, A Musical Marriage Proposal.

Published

10 months ago

June 3, 2022

DJ Hittman

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Back in October of 2021, Parmalee released ‘Take My Name’ as the second single from their third studio album. It was written with and produced by David Fanning, producer of the massive hit ‘Carolina’ that introduced me to the band back in 2008, Ashley Gorley and Ben Johnson. Robyn Collins of ‘Taste of Country’ described the song as “a musical marriage proposal” and lead singer of the band, Matt Thomas, says it was inspired by the marriage of brother Scott; he says “it made me think about what I would want to say to my future wife.”

Some songs almost become bigger than themselves when they tap into the lives and moods of everyone and this is very much one of those songs. It’s not difficult to see why this song has been adopted by fans all over the world irrespective of their taste in music; its words conjure all the romance and love that you’d hope to feel when you ask someone to marry you. It’s lyrically a shopping list of everything you feel at the moment you realise you’ve met the one, even if that’s after only a short time. I remember proposing to my wife after just 8 weeks and if I try to remember what I was feeling at the point I proposed and tried to put it into words I would hope it was very similar to this song. Now over 31 years later and still happily married I listen to this song and it brings all those feelings back in a rush so why wouldn’t it be the perfect song to overlay a proposal, sing at the wedding or just be part of the moment; it’s how I’d love my sons to feel when they propose to their partners.

Parmalee are very aware of their fans needs and were quick to record a wedding version for such occasions with a less catchy percussion and a softer piano focussed vibe than the original version. There have even been brilliant occasions where the band has turned up to “crash” a wedding and sing this song to the happy couple reminiscent of Maroon 5 and their song ‘Sugar’. None of those guests will forget that wedding in a hurry!

With all the interest in the song and the brilliant videos and messages the band have received, they felt the time was right to make their own narrative video to accompany the song as an addition to the previously released visualizer. The ‘Wedding Version’ video of the romantic song was filmed in Gallatin, TN and directed by Shane Drake. The heart-warming story follows the journey of the protagonist through middle school and all the way to adulthood featuring kids from a local school, an original 1968 Mustang Shelby GT350 and appearances from the band with the lead being played by frontman Matt Thomas.

Matt says:

“From the jump, the fans have really latched onto this song in such an amazing, life changing way- our fans have been the reason for so many of our own major milestones, so it means that much more to us that folks are using our song for their proposals and weddings and allowing us to be a part of those major moments in their lives. We wanted to pay tribute to the fans who have been on this journey with us since the beginning so in the music video you’ll see a story of love and loyalty unfold across the years-but don’t expect to see any weddings or proposals – the fan created videos far exceed anything we could depict. We love watching them.”

With over 135 million global on demand streams, the song has raced up the Country charts, outpacing the band’s previous single, the multinational Number 1 smash ‘Just The Way’ with Blanco Brown and has been popping up all over TikTok with creators playing the song over proposal and wedding videos and even sparking a trend of using the sound of the song and writing “if your man doesn’t make you feel this way then what are you doing?” over the video.

Parmalee - Take My Name (Official Music Video)

Coming from their recently released album ‘For You’, an album that has garnered critical acclaim with American Songwriter calling it “authentically real, genuinely inspired” and Billboard saying that “Parmalee find itself in the enviable position of being able to tap into multiple audiences”. What is very clear is that Country music is slowly starting to find a new, younger audience in the UK to stand alongside the existing fans of the genre. Zack Bryan has recently found himself high on the Spotify album charts and UK stars like Ed Sheeran have appeared alongside Country stars like Luke Combs at the Country2Country festival. Even Tom Odell has found himself headlining the British Country Music Festival in the Summer. Parmalee may be the band to really break down the barriers between Country music and the UK Charts with this song as the musical genre of this release is far less important than the honesty and emotion of the lyrics and Romance will always break down all of the barriers, or at least I would hope it would.

‘For You’ is out now and can be streamed and downloaded here. Find out more about Parmalee and their music online on their official website.

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Mercedess Releases debut album ‘Casa Fantasia’ along with lead single ‘Summers Already Gone’

Published

10 months ago

June 3, 2022

DJ Hittman

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This Copenhagen DIY pop artist has managed the difficult task of mixing her soulful voice with vibrant dreamy production and lyrics with real streetwise attitude. The result is something that has given her the hit single ‘Obvious’ which Danish radio loved and the internationally acclaimed single ‘Back to Business’. Now she is releasing the excellent lead single ‘Summer’s Already Gone’ which sounds very modern Bond in its lo fi production but tells an unusual love story. Not a story about falling in love with a person, but about the love affair that always ends; the affair with Summer.

She says:

“I wanted to write a song that could represent both the fearlessness of the magical Summer days and the truly blue sadness of the re occuring love story it actually is when Summer eventually comes to an end. I know it’s a heartbreaking, melancholy feeling but it’s also everything I love about Summer.”

The song was written in Mercedess’ living room with Danish indie superstar Goss and the guitarist Søren Breum and is produced by the critically acclaimed artist Vera. It allows the velvet of the artist’s voice to tumble over the muted trumpets, break beats and flirty acoustic guitars and strings bringing to life the seasonal heartbreak.

The fact that it is about the love and anticipation felt for Summer is almost more poignant this year as we embark upon the first free Summer for a few years. The affair with Summer this year promises to be a torrid passionate affair as we’ve been apart so long but the heartbreak of its end will be felt more keenly. This song will be the soundtrack to the affair for sure.

The single is released on the same day as the debut album from this exciting new talent. Mercedess says of the album: “Casa Fantasia is an album about longing for closeness and honesty. These songs are an escape from reality-a place to feel free and be yourself. Writing it was a personal journey and process to me that hopefully will make space for creativity, art and emotions for others too”

The album promises to do just that with the artist’s melancholy and yet warm and dreamy vocals and marks an exciting new chapter for an artist destined to find international acclaim with this collection of music. Summer may come and go but I’m sure the appeal of Mercedess will be perennial.

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