"The Ten Christmas Songs of Steve Pulaski"
Song #10: José Feliciano - "Feliz Navidad" (1970)
Feliz Navidad
"I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart!"
Steve Pulaski's Foreword to "The Ten Christmas Songs of Steve Pulaski:" As many of you know, I did a massive undertaking during the summer of 2014, where I cataloged the one-hundred songs I know that either shaped me as a person, had an immense personal effect on me, or I felt were underrated and deserved more recognition. With that enormous blog series laid to rest, I decided for the holiday season to resurrect a "sequel" of sorts, with my top ten favorite Christmas songs. These songs aren't necessarily as meaningful to me as the aforementioned one-hundred (which, for the record, you can view each individualized song and a writeup of its impact on me on this very blog), but these tunes get me in the mood for Christmas and strike an emotional chord in me that I always anxiously await to let free. This blog series begins on December 15, 2014 and will conclude on December 24, 2014, leaving you with the potential for a Christmas playlist on the ride to your loved ones' home. Are you ready?
Song #10: José Feliciano - "Feliz Navidad:" I might as well use one of the two conventional Christmas songs to kick off "The Ten Christmas Songs of Steve Pulaski," with the first one being José Feliciano's instantly recognizable "Feliz Navidad." Right off the bat, my first comment is a criticism, which is the song has unremarkable lyrics, especially for "the most wonderful time of the year." However, Feliciano makes us forget how monotonous the song is by combining tremendous orchestration with his enthusiastic vocals to create a song that gets anybody moving a bit quicker and ready to embrace the holidays. Employing fun and effectively-blended Spanglish to create the mood,Feliciano makes this song vibrant and terrifically uptempo, and when the instruments kick it up a notch for Feliciano's trademark chorus, each time I hear it, reminds me why I feel a bit more inspired during this time of the year. As simple and as beautiful as it is, it's easy to forget with the plethora of more famous Christmas classics coming to mind over this one, but rarely has a classic song been sung so well that any other version doesn't receive a fourth of the recognition.
Give "Feliz Navidad" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM70hBp2Fjk
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