What song tenuously links The Man Who Fell To Earth, The Sound of Music, a crooner who had a penchant for golf and a bunch of psychedelic musical miscreants from Oklahoma? Any guesses? No? Well, obviously it's that festive favourite The Little Drummer Boy.
Written in 1941, and first recorded by the Trapp Family Singers some ten years later, The Little Drummer Boy has been covered by the likes of Joan Baez, New Kids On The Block, Marlene Dietrich, The Dandy Warhols and Jimi Hendrix. Of all the covers though the most famous and more peculiar takes on the song, notable for the pairing of the talents involved, is that recorded by Bing Crosby and David Bowie in 1977 for the former's final television special.
Bowie and Bing's version of the song interweaves Peace on Earth, written specifically for their television duet, and became something of a hit when it was released in 1982. The single peaked at number 3 in the UK Charts, becoming one of Bowie's best-selling singles, and I have the 7" of it safely stored here in a record box. It's weird but it's also rather sweet, this meeting of an old hand at the game and a performer who constantly and consistently reinvented himself.
It's this version of the song that American psych-rockers The Flaming Lips have covered as their 2018 Christmas song, sprinkling it with their brand of Oklahoma magic and accompanying it with a suitably trippy video (co-directed by frontman Wayne Coyne) that could easily be an excerpt of a sequel to Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, starring Roy Wood, that would play back in my mind if I reach for the festive Absinthe.
Written in 1941, and first recorded by the Trapp Family Singers some ten years later, The Little Drummer Boy has been covered by the likes of Joan Baez, New Kids On The Block, Marlene Dietrich, The Dandy Warhols and Jimi Hendrix. Of all the covers though the most famous and more peculiar takes on the song, notable for the pairing of the talents involved, is that recorded by Bing Crosby and David Bowie in 1977 for the former's final television special.
Bowie and Bing's version of the song interweaves Peace on Earth, written specifically for their television duet, and became something of a hit when it was released in 1982. The single peaked at number 3 in the UK Charts, becoming one of Bowie's best-selling singles, and I have the 7" of it safely stored here in a record box. It's weird but it's also rather sweet, this meeting of an old hand at the game and a performer who constantly and consistently reinvented himself.
It's this version of the song that American psych-rockers The Flaming Lips have covered as their 2018 Christmas song, sprinkling it with their brand of Oklahoma magic and accompanying it with a suitably trippy video (co-directed by frontman Wayne Coyne) that could easily be an excerpt of a sequel to Santa Claus Conquers The Martians, starring Roy Wood, that would play back in my mind if I reach for the festive Absinthe.
A joyously bonkers take on a classic, reworked as only the Lips can, which might not be as far out there as the video would suggest though would sit well amongst a suitably alternative yuletide playlist.
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