This blog is dedicated to the amateur or beginner musician with music written in a simple and easy to read Alpha Notes format and with Chords for the left hand. This is to assist those with little or hardly at all note reading skills. This is a blog that shows all the chords in Alpha Notes format too which you can find the notes for the chords in one of the blogs. Please feel free to leave a comment or any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!
The "Oh Shenandoah" is conventional American folk music of not the certain origin, dating to the early nineteenth century.
The song becomes to have started with Canadian and American travelers or fur dealers making a journey down the Missouri River in canoes and has developed a number of different sets of lyrics. Some lyrics mentioned to the Oneida chief Shenandoah and a canoe-going trader who desires to marry his daughter. By the mid-1800s versions of the music had begun to be a sea shanty heard or sung by sailors in various parts of the world.
The music is number 324 (three hundred twenty-four) in the Roud Folk Song Index.
Until the nineteenth century, only travelers who were being searched for their destinies as trappers and dealers of beaver fur journeyed as far west as the Missouri River. Almost all of these Canadian and American "travelers" in the fur trade era were loners who became friendly with, and occasionally married, Native Americans. Some lyrics of this music heard by and before 1860 state the story of a trader who fell in love with the daughter of the Oneida Iroquois pine tree chief Shenandoah (1710–1816), who resided in the central New York state municipality of Oneida Castle. He was a co-founder of the Oneida Academy, which began to be Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, and is hidden on the campus grounds.
The canoe-going fur-trading travelers were famous singers, and songs were an essential part of their culture. Additionally, in the early nineteenth century, flat-boatmen who used the Missouri River were well-known for their shanties, including "Oh Shenandoah". Sailors traveling down the Mississippi River selected the song and created it a capstan shanty that they sang while hauling in the anchor. This boatmen's music found its way down the Mississippi River to American clipper ships, and consequently around the world.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
Oh, Shenandoah, I hear you calling Hi-o, you rolling river Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you Hi-o, I'm bound away 'Cross the wide, Missouri
Missouri, she's a mighty river Hi-o, you rolling river When she rolls down, her topsails shiver Hi-o, I'm bound away 'Cross the wide, Missouri
Farewell my dearest, I'm bound to leave you Hi-o, you rolling river Oh, Shenandoah, I'll not deceive you Hi-o, I'm bound away 'Cross the wide Missouri
The song has since gone on to become a modern Christmas classic, recorded by hundreds of artists over the years, across multiple genres. Several recordings have reached the top ten in various Billboard charts. The song encourages contemplation of the relationship between Mary and her son, and it has been lauded by many Christian theologians, although other religious commentators have criticized the lyrics.
"Mary, Did You Know?" was originally released in the key of E♭ minor, with a tempo of 53 beats per minute in 4 4 meter, based around a chord progression of E♭m–D♭–A♭m7–B♭7sus4–B♭7. The lyrics evolved from a series of questions that Lowry scripted for a Christmas program at his church:
I just tried to put into words the unfathomable. I started thinking of the questions I would have for her if I were to sit down & have coffee with Mary. You know, "What was it like raising God?" "What did you know?" "What didn't you know?"
None of the questions are answered in the song. Instead, the lyrics poetically invite the listener to contemplate the relationship between Mary and her newborn divine son, even if her faith and awareness did not yet include the details of what would unfold.
The text has received both praise for reflecting the love of God, as well as criticism for perceived ambiguity or lack of theological depth. Robert McTeigue and Michelle Arnold, both Roman Catholic commentators, have questioned a particular line of text ("This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you") that might confuse or challenge the belief that Mary herself was conceived without sin. On the other hand the Roman Catholic author Karl Erickson implored people to praise Mary, Did You Know? as a "beautiful expression of God’s love for all of us" and responded to criticism of the piece, stating that "Mary, Did You Know is a song and not a theological essay. Even as simple Christmas music, however, it does a fine job conveying the beauty and profound mystery of the Incarnation. Yes, there is some poetic license taken within the lyrics, but much less than is taken within innumerable other songs we are asked to sing regularly—Sing a New Church, for example." Lutheran clergyman Timothy Koch states that criticism of the song is unwarranted because Mary, Did You Know? is simply poetry using rhetorical questions and that it is "actually communicating to the singer and hearer the truths about Jesus", including doctrines of salvation, homoousious, and the theotokos.
In 2017, Toronto-based theologian Jennifer Henry wrote new lyrics that address the criticisms and echo Mary's words from the biblical Magnificat. These new lyrics have begun to spread in religious settings.
[Verse 2] Mary, did you know That your baby boy will give sight to a blind man? Mary, did you know That your baby boy will calm a storm with His hand? Did you know That your baby boy has walked where angels trod? And when you kiss your little baby You've kissed the face of God Mary, did you know?
[Bridge] The blind will see The deaf will hear And the dead will live again The lame will leap The dumb will speak The praises of the Lamb
[Verse 3] Mary, did you know That your baby boy is Lord of all creation? Mary, did you know That your baby boy will one day rule the nations? Did you know That your baby boy is heaven's perfect Lamb? This sleeping child you're holding Is the Great I Am
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" is a Christmas song written by Johnny Marks and recorded by Brenda Lee in 1958; it has since been recorded by numerous other music artists. By the song's 50th anniversary in 2008, Lee's original version had sold over 15 million copies around the world with the 4th most digital downloads sold of any Christmas single. In 2019, Lee's recording of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In November 2023, Lee released a music video for the song, and in December 2023 the song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, marking Lee's third number-one single and making Lee the oldest artist ever to top the Hot 100 at age 78, later breaking the record once again one week later at the age of 79. The song also set the record for the longest period of time between an original release and its topping the Hot 100 (65 years), as well as the longest time between number-one singles by an artist: 63 years, one month and two weeks.
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" was written by Johnny Marks, who had previously penned "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and "A Holly Jolly Christmas". In spite of her adult voice, Lee recorded the song when she was only 13 years old. In a 2019 interview with The Tennessean, Lee recalled that she had no knowledge as to why Marks wanted her specifically to sing it: "I was only 12 , and I had not had a lot of success in records, but for some reason he heard me and wanted me to do it. And I did."
An instrumental version of the song appears as background music in the 1964 television specialRudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, which exclusively featured music written by Johnny Marks. It can be heard in the scene where Rudolph first arrives at the Reindeer Games and meets another reindeer named Fireball. A fully sung version of the song would later appear in Rankin/Bass's 1979 sequel Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July. The song was also used in the 1990 film Home Alone during a scene when Kevin McCallister pretends that there is a holiday party taking place in his house, and discourages the burglars from robbing it. The song was also featured in The Christmas Special episode of Regular Show in 2012. The song was also used in D-TV set to the Disney cartoons, Pluto's Christmas Tree and Mickey's Christmas Carol.
In 1991, Lee rerecorded the song and other standards for A Brenda Lee Christmas, which includes only the rerecording and not the original version.
On November 3, 2023, Lee released a music video for the song, consisting of the 78-year-old Lee lip synching to the original recording of her 13-year-old voice at a party that includes Trisha Yearwood and fellow former teenage country music star Tanya Tucker.
In October 2024, Universal Music Group released “Noche Buena y Navidad,” a Spanish adaptation of the song that features an AI version of Lee’s vocals. Rewritten in Spanish and produced by producer/songwriter Auero Baqueiro, the goal was to make it sound like 13-year old Lee was singing the song in Spanish. The new version uses a plug-in from AI music tech company SoundLabs. To create “Noche Buena y Navidad,” after rewriting the song, Baquiero brought in Chilean vocalist Leyla Hoyle to record a Spanish language guide track while mimicking the pitch and phrasings of the original. The vocal stems were then sent to SoundLabs, which ran the vocals through its “Brenda Lee” AI vocal model that was trained on hours of the singer’s isolated vocal stems, including the original “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” Baquiero then mixed the new isolated AI-generated vocal into the original music elements of the track. The project was completed with a full sign-on from Lee, who is now 79 years old. “Throughout my career, I performed and recorded many songs in different languages, but I never recorded ‘Rockin’ in Spanish, which I would have loved to do,” Lee said in a press release. “To have this out now is pretty incredible, and I’m happy to introduce the song to fans in a new way.”
Although Decca released the single in both 1958 and again in 1959, it did not sell well until Lee became a popular star in 1960. That Christmas holiday season, Lee's "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" placed on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the first time, eventually peaking at No. 14. It continued to sell well during subsequent holiday seasons, peaking as high as No. 3 on Billboard's Christmas Singles chart in December 1965. Lee said, "It was magic, and I think we all knew it. It took a few years to take off, but once it did, it really did."
The song experienced a large resurgence in popularity due to its use in the film Home Alone in 1990. Lee recalled, "Somebody called me and said, “Have you seen the movie Home Alone? You ought to, because they've got "Rockin'” really featured in it.” That's when it really took off with the youngsters. I knew it was special, but you never know what's going to be a hit — if you did, we'd all have hits every day. It has been a wonderful gift."
Lee's 1958 recording still receives a great deal of airplay, as radio station formats ranging from top 40 to adult contemporary to country music to oldies to even adult standards have played this version. It has since turned into a perennial holiday favorite, and due to rule changes in 2014 has returned annually to the Billboard Hot 100 chart, reaching No. 2 in the 2019 holiday season and returning to that runner-up position each of the following three years (for a total of nine nonconsecutive weeks at No. 2). In December 2023, the song finally reached No. 1. By attaining the Hot 100's top spot 65 years after its original release, the song broke the record for the longest amount of time for a single to make the number-one position. It was also only the third time in the over six-decade history of the Hot 100 chart that a Christmas/holiday song reached No. 1 (following "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" by David Seville and The Chipmunks in December 1958, and "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey in December 2019). With the achievement and her celebrating her 79th birthday at the same time, Lee also became the senior-most recording artist to top the Hot 100 chart, surpassing Louis Armstrong, who was 62 years old when "Hello, Dolly!" led the chart in early May 1964. Among female recording artists, Lee also passed the previous record held by Cher, who was 52 years old when "Believe" ruled the Hot 100 chart in March 1999. Making even more history, Lee set a new record for the longest break between number-one singles on the Hot 100 chart: 63 years, one month, and two weeks between "I Want to Be Wanted" making No. 1 on the week ending October 24, 1960, and the ascent of "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" to the top.
"Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" reached over one million in digital downloads by 2016 according to Nielsen SoundScan, making it fifth on the list of all-time best-selling Christmas/holiday digital singles in SoundScan history. The song has sold 1,170,000 copies in the United States as of December 2019. On December 9, 2024, the Recording Industry Association of America certified "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" 7× Platinum for US sales of 7 million copies of the digital single.
On the official UK Singles Chart, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" peaked at No. 6 when it was released in the United Kingdom in 1962. In 2013, due to downloads, it became one of a number of songs to re-enter the UK Singles Chart near Christmastime each holiday season. The single peaked at No. 63 on Sunday, December 15, 2013. Then in 2017, it reached No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart, its highest chart position since 1963. On the week ending January 5, 2023, the song reached No. 4, peaking two places higher than its original release 61 years prior.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
Rockin' around the Christmas tree At the Christmas party hop Mistletoe hung where you can see Every couple tries to stop Rockin' around the Christmas tree Let the Christmas spirit ring Later we'll have some pumpkin pie And we'll do some caroling
You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear Voices singing, let's be jolly Deck the halls with boughs of holly Rockin' around the Christmas tree Have a happy holiday Everyone dancin' merrily In the new old-fashioned way
You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear Voices singing, let's be jolly Deck the halls with boughs of holly Rockin' around the Christmas tree Have a happy holiday Everyone dancin' merrily In the new old-fashioned way
After the success of "Witch Doctor" in early 1958, Liberty Records asked Bagdasarian to create another successful novelty record. He then came up with three singing chipmunks.
In 1958, Ross Bagdasarian released a novelty song (as David Seville) about being unsuccessful at love until he found a witch doctor who told him how to woo his woman; the witch doctor responds in a high-pitched squeaky voice with a nonsense incantation which creates an earworm. Seville recording his own voice which was sung slowly but recorded at half speed on the tape recorder, then played back at normal speed, thereby speeding up the voice into a high-pitched squeaky one. The song was a hit, holding number one for three weeks in the Billboard Hot 100 chart, ranked by Billboard as the No. 4 song for 1958.
After the song’ s success, Seville came up with three singing chipmunks who were named, as an inside joke, after executives at Liberty Records. The chipmunks were Alvin (named after Al Bennett), Simon (named after Simon Waronker), and Theodore (Ted Keep).
One phrase in the chorus has Alvin wishing for a hula hoop, which was that year's hot new toy.The novelty record was highly successful, selling 4.5 million copies in seven weeks. It eventually sold 12 million copies. Before the song's success, "The Chipmunk Song" was featured on American Bandstand's "Rate-A-Record" segment and received the lowest possible rating of 35 across the board. It spent four weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart from December 22, 1958, to January 12, 1959, succeeding "To Know Him Is to Love Him" at Number 1 on the same chart by the Teddy Bears, a pop group that featured Phil Spector. At the height of its popularity, Bagdasarian and three chipmunk hand-puppets appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, lip-synching the song. "The Chipmunk Song" appeared on the Chipmunks' debut album, Let's All Sing with the Chipmunks, in 1959, and was repeated on Christmas with the Chipmunks, released in 1962. The song also has been included on several compilation albums. It had the distinction of being the only Christmas record to reach No. 1 on the same chart until Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You" did so 61 years later in 2019.
The song was certified Gold by the RIAA as one of the best-selling physical Christmas singles in the United States. Between 1958 and 1962, the single re-entered the Hot 100 several times, peaking at No. 41 in 1958, No. 45 in 1960, and No. 39 in 1962. (Starting in 1963, Billboard would list recurrent Christmas songs on a separate chart.) The song charted on the Hot Digital Songs for the first time in 2005, peaking at No. 35. With the release and popularity of the live-action film Alvin and the Chipmunks in 2007, "The Chipmunk Song" re-entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 70. At the same time, a remixed version of the song that appears on the Chipmunks' 2007 album (and soundtrack to the film) Alvin and the Chipmunks: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, peaked at No. 66.
The Chipmunk Song is a popular Christmas song that has been featured in movies and television, and has been a staple on the Billboard charts. The song was a number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 when it was released in 1958, and re-entered the chart multiple times in the 1960s. It also appeared on the Holiday 100, where it peaked at number 26 in 2015. The song has been featured in many movies and television shows, including Look Who's Talking Now! (1993), Donnie Brasco (1997), The Fate of the Furious (2017), and an episode of The King of Queens (1998). Bob Rivers released a parody of the song for his 2000 Christmas album Chipmunks Roasting on an Open Fire. The song was featured in the 2007 live-action film Alvin and the Chipmunks, and a remix of the song was created for the movie and entered the Hot 100. The song helped launch the multimillion-dollar Alvin and the Chipmunks brand. It is considered one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
"I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is a Christmas song with music and lyrics by British songwriter Tommie Connor and first recorded by American singer Jimmy Boyd in 1952. The song has since been covered by many artists, with the Ronettes's 1963 and the Jackson 5's 1970 versions being the most famous.
The original recording by Jimmy Boyd, recorded on 15 July 1952, when he was 13 years old, reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop singles chart in December 1952, and on the Cash Box chart at the beginning of the following year. It later reached number three in the UK Singles Chart when released there in November 1953. The song was commissioned by Saks Fifth Avenue to promote the store's Christmas card for the year, which featured an original sketch by artist Perry Barlow, who drew for The New Yorker for many decades.
The song describes a scene where a child walks downstairs from his bedroom on Christmas Eve to see his mother kissing Santa Claus under the mistletoe. The lyric concludes with the child wondering how his father will react on hearing of the kiss, unaware of the possibility that Santa Claus is merely his father in a costume.
It was reported that Boyd's record was condemned by the Roman Catholic Church and Banned in Boston when it was released, believing that it described an adulterous encounter. The story goes that Boyd was then photographed meeting with the Archdiocese of Boston to explain the joke behind the song, after which the ban was lifted. However, the Archdiocese has no records of any ban, and no contemporaneous records or photographs can be found of a meeting between Boyd and any officials, leading the story to appear as a myth.
A slightly less successful version of the song (#7 on the US Charts) was released in 1952 by Spike Jones (with vocal by George Rock in the little boy voice used in Spike's hit "All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth"). Jones also recorded a parody for his personal pleasure titled "I Saw Mommy Screwing Santa Claus."
A recording by 13-year-old Molly Bee appeared on the US Country charts in 1952.
In 1962, The Four Seasons (band) released a version of the song on their Christmas Album. This versin differs from the others as it features the distinct falsetto of Frankie Valli
The Jackson 5 recorded the song for their 1970 Christmas album. The version entered the UK Singles Chart at its peak position, No. 91, on the week ending 5 December 1987, and charting for four weeks total.It also peaked at No. 30 on Billboard'sHoliday 100 chart on the week ending 2 December 2023, at No. 43 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart on the week ending 6 January 2024, and at No. 100 on a Swiss singles chart on the week ending 29 December 2019.
To download the easy alphanotes sheet music, look here.
Enjoy!
Lyrics:
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus (kissing, kissing Santa Claus) Underneath the mistletoe last night She didn't see me creep Down the stairs to have a peep She thought that I was tucked up In my bedroom, fast asleep
Then I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus (tickle, tickle, Santa Claus) Underneath his beard so snowy white Oh, what a laugh it would have been If daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night
He saw Mommy kissing (kissing, kissing) Santa Claus I did! I really did see Mommy kissing Santa Claus And I'm gonna tell my dad
Then I saw Mommy tickle Santa Claus (tickle, tickle Santa Claus) Underneath his beard so snowy white Oh, what a laugh it would have been If daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night
Oh, what a laugh it would have been If daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night
I did! I did! I really did see Mommy kissing Santa Claus You gotta believe me! You just gotta believe me! Come on, fellas, believe me! You just gotta believe me! Come on, you gotta believe me!
