Santa Baby - Cynthia Basinet

I had to relearn something today: I always thought this version of Santa Baby was by Marilyn Monroe. My bad! Actually, Cynthia Basinet recorded it in 1997 as a gift for Jack Nicholson but somehow the rest of the world still credited Monroe. I wonder if this works to Basinet's advantage or whether it is just annoying?

This is a perfect song for Christmas Eve. After all, a girl's gotta dream, right? There are other less tolerable versions of Santa Baby which try to go for the cutesy pie appeal but they fall short of Basinet's smooth style and classy vocals. See what you think:

Christmas All Over Again - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Here's another non-typical Christmas song with rocky undertones. Christmas All Over Again by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers reminds me of years of Christmas seasons with my band. We didn't play this number ourselves but it was part of the Christmas CD I'd play during our third break ... actually, that brings back mixed memories but this is one of the songs I preferred listening to every December.

Nightswimming - R.E.M.

I went through a stage of really liking R.E.M. back in the 90s before I reached saturation point with their music a few years ago. I still occasionally enjoy spinning the odd R.E.M. album but listen to them a lot less these days. Nightswimming was released in 1993 and is so very different to the usual R.E.M. sound, which is what first caught my attention.

As a pianist, I love how this entire song is built around a single, circular piano line (and a few of its variations) played repeatedly. The string arrangement was done by the legendary John Paul Jones and Songfacts tells me that it was written and played on the same piano featured in Derek and the Dominos' Layla; that's a pretty cool.To be honest, I've barely ever listened to the lyrics or much beyond the piano part and orchestration, but I'm allowed to be biased. ;-)

Zoot Suit Riot - Cherry Poppin' Daddies

Zoot Suit Riot is a ska swing song by Cherry Poppin' Daddies. It is big band style swing music with a definite ska twist. In the late 1990s, swing music was yet to experience the renaissance of recent years and I remember noting this song as something distinctly different from other music of the day.

Zoot Suit Riot is more memorable than a particular favourite for me. Around the time it was released in 1997, my mother was in hospital. As she was in the process of waking up after her operation, she kept mumbling something about a bottle of beer. As someone who doesn't drink and had just had surgery, we thought this was a really strange thing for her to say. It wasn't until we'd got her home and she was listening to the radio that she said, "that's the song the doctors were listening to!". Hopefully she meant before theatre, and not during her surgery when she should have been well and truly anaesthetised!