Runaway Christmas Tree

Christine Lavin | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 21, 2003)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Appleseed Records
• ASIN: B0000CDL72
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #222,989 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

New York Times, December 5, 2003

"A highly original CD, "The Runaway Christmas Tree" stands far above the stockingfuls of sound-alike tripe released every season."

"Great goofy fun, with harmony singing and nice writing." (3 jingle bells out of 3)

"Funny folkie Lavin scores big points for a cappella ecumenical gems such as her 'All Purpose Carol.'"

Product Description

One of the wittiest and most insightful contemporary singer-songwriters, Christine Lavin, sets aside her customary focus on interpersonal relationships in the bewildering modern era to create a characteristic mixture of irreverent and genuine winter holiday songs. Discovering that she "just couldn’t find a good Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/ Chanukah/Ramadan/Boxing Day album," she rounded up seven other vocalists, a sackful of humorous, offbeat and sometimes moving seasonal songs, a couple of original stories, and created this lighthearted a cappella alternative to the usual cloying Christmas-season songbook.

Inspired by the vocal techniques of Sol "Roundman" Weber," Christine enlisted singer-songwriter Julie ("From a Distance") Gold, Emily Bindiger and Margaret Dorn from The Accidentals, the harmony octet that won the 2002 National A Cappella Competition, Ervin Drake (author of standards "Good Morning, Heartache" and "It Was a Very Good Year"), actor/director/singer David Lutken (a veteran of Broadway and Off-Broadway), R&B/gospel singer Gregory Clark, and artist/vocalist Andrea Vuocolo in this "all vocals/all ages" project (which Bindiger produced).

This CD contains tales of Christmas wishes gone wrong ("Polkadot Pancakes"), choral complaints and celebrations regarding seasonal food ("Scalloped Potatoes" and "Tacobel Canon," respectively), and a snippet of what sounds like munchkins on helium ("Elves"). The title track is a bedtime story Lavin wrote to explain why people decorate their Christmas trees (to weight them down so they won’t escape, of course). Interspersed with these unorthodox holiday excursions are a handful of more conventional hymns to the peace and joy of December – the lovely "Dona Nobis Pacem," "A New Year’s Round," "Lamb and Lion," and "Allelujah/Amen." There’s also the slightly twisted "A Christmas/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Chanukah/Ramadan/Boxing Day Song," an express-lane version of "The 12 Days of Christmas" (retitled "Th 12 Dys f Chrstms") and "The All-Purpose Carol" (which ends with a resounding "Oy, mon!").

"Try NOT to sing along," challenges Lavin. "That’s the hard part."

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars No! Not polkadot pancakes!, December 22, 2005

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Runaway Christmas Tree (Audio CD)

This album features "favorite holiday songs and bedtime stories". Actually, there are only two stories here, both of which are cute stories that are aimed at kids. The rest of the album features Christine Lavin (and friends) singing acapella Christmas songs. There are some very old songs, along with some fairly new songs. The songs are all well sung, and certainly different from the songs on other acapella Christmas albums. This is a unique Christmas album, give it a listen.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Round and round and round, December 2, 2006

By 

Emma Antunes (Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Runaway Christmas Tree (Audio CD)

If you like rounds, overlapping voices, and echo effects, then you'll love this CD. I'm a big fan of Christine Lavin and enjoyed it quite a lot, but also found the style to be a little repetetive. My eight year old daughter loved the two stories - they had her complete attention. She got tired of the rounds quickly, though, and wanted me to skip past the taco bell canon (which I actually found pretty funny and enjoyable). You might want to choose your favorite songs to put in a mix, rather than listening to the album straight through more than the first few times.