All Posts Tagged With: "song"

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Certainly among the Christmas favorites for many of us in Oklahoma, there’s a story behind this song:

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is a Christmas novelty song written by John Rox and performed by Gayla Peevey (10 years old at the time) in 1953. The B-side of the original 78 featured the song “Are my Ears on Straight?”

Peevey was a regional child star of the Oklahoma City area. According to legend, this 1953 hit was recorded as a fund-raiser to bring the city zoo a hippo. When released nationally by Columbia Records the song shot to the top of the charts, and the city zoo got a baby hippo named Matilda. In a 2007 radio interview with Detroit-based WNIC radio station, Peevey clarified that the song was not recorded as a fundraiser originally. Instead, a local promoter picked up on the popularity of the song and Peevey’s local roots, and launched a campaign to present her with an actual hippopotamus on Christmas. The campaign succeeded, and she was presented with an actual hippopotamus, which she donated to the city zoo. The hippopotamus lived for nearly 50 years.

Another great one from Straight No Chaser, my new instant favorite music group…

One of my favorite songs of late is John Legend’s “If You’re Out There,” which he sang at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention. I can’t get it out of my head.

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Here are the lyrics if you want to following along Continued

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Lyrics to the song Continued

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Lyrics: Continued

One of the coolest renditions of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, by four Norwegian singers — Nilsen Kurt, Espen Lind, Askil Holm and Alejandro Fuentes…

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You can see Leonard Cohen’s singing of his signature song here, k.d. lang’s rendition here and Jeff Buckley’s haunting rendition here. You can find the lyrics here.