Alone on Christmas Day (1977 Version)

[rickymyfataar]

Video for the original video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFfAZS98DG4

[pixletwin]

Poor Mike. 

[Jim V.]

So, it is what it is. But first, isn’t this a Beach Boys song and not a Mike Love song, in this guise?

And secondly, isn’t this an unreleased recording owned by BRI? Why is the guy who makes videos for Mike making music videos for bootlegs?

[rickymyfataar]

Are the boys singing backup on this?

[HeyJude]

This is the Beach Boys take from the unreleased '77 XMas album.

Not sure why a guy who has made "authorized" Mike videos is not only putting out a booted song, but also incorrectly crediting it as Mike instead of the Beach Boys, and has also used a crummy boot version that sounds worse than other circulating versions and is running too fast.

At some point somebody on YouTube uploaded a very good sounding version taken from one of those 1993 in-house promo cassettes that were auctioned off a few years back. (Capitol apparently considered/attempted to put the '77 Xmas album out in 1993 and it reached the stage of in-house promo cassettes, but obviously never came out).

This track isn't great, but it's not bad. Certainly better than Mike's later solo version. If you're into that era, the MIU era and whatnot, it's not bad.

Not sure precisely who is on backing vocals; others that have done sessionographies could probably say. To my ears, it sounds like the usual MIU backing vocal lineup, probably Brian, Al, maybe/probably Rocky and Billy. Not sure if Rovells are on it, or Carl.

[DonnyL]

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

[HeyJude]

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

I definitely hear Carl on the backing vocals on the '77 version of "Alone on Christmas Day."

As for why the song never came out, as I recall from the heady days of 1998 when Brad Elliott was still doing liner notes and working on BB releases, he mentioned that there had been a vetting process for the '77 tracks on the 1998 "Ultimate Christmas" CD. The sense I got was that someone (or several someones) vetoed stuff like "Alone on Christmas Day" and "Go and Get that Girl." Although, it's worth noting that that CD is pretty much filled with no room to spare (apparently why they left off "The Lord's Prayer" thinking it was going to be a bonus track on the aborted plan to reissue the 60s albums on CD as individual albums with lots of bonus tracks), so they really didn't have room for more '77 tracks. But I recall there were questions back then about especially the aforementioned "Alone.." and "Go and Get that Girl", because one could argue they're better or more interesting than a few of the tracks that made it on the CD, and certainly I think most would have been happy to elbow the spoken-word stuff to fit even one more actual song.

Mike's lead vocal on "Alone" from '77 is a bit shaky; I always figured that was the main reason it might have been vetoed. Weirdly, when Mike re-recorded the song solo years later, he acted as if he had completely forgotten about the song and hadn't thought about it since 1977, to the point of not remembering who co-wrote it. Yet, there were at least two attempts to release the song, in 1993 as well as 1998, so Mike presumably just forgot about those instances as well.

[nts and the drum]

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

According to the latest issue of ESQ, Carl doesn’t sing on it, but Brian, Al, Mike, Ron Altbach and Gary Puckett (!!!) are all singing the backups. Additionally, in regards to Carl on MIU, he’s only on She’s Got Rhythm (vox and guitar), Come Go With Me (vox), Hey Little Tomboy (vox and guitar), Peggy Sue (vox), Wontcha (guitar only apparently), Sweet Sunday (lead vox only), Pitter Patter (vox and guitar) and My Diane (vox)

Hopefully that’s helpful, and yeah this is a great song

Oh and yeah sneaking one extra detail: Brian is on every track in some way (vocally or instrumentally)

[HeyJude]

I always loved this version of the is song, odd it has never come out (better than a lot of things that have).

RE: who’s singing in it- I always hear Carl in the “doo-doo-wah-dah”, but then again those Celebration guys did a good job of sounding like the actual Beach Boys of the era. I can never tell who is singing what on MIU either- I bet some of those vocals that sound like Carl and Al are not.

According to the latest issue of ESQ, Carl doesn’t sing on it, but Brian, Al, Mike, Ron Altbach and Gary Puckett (!!!) are all singing the backups. Additionally, in regards to Carl on MIU, he’s only on She’s Got Rhythm (vox and guitar), Come Go With Me (vox), Hey Little Tomboy (vox and guitar), Peggy Sue (vox), Wontcha (guitar only apparently), Sweet Sunday (lead vox only), Pitter Patter (vox and guitar) and My Diane (vox)

Hopefully that’s helpful, and yeah this is a great song

Oh and yeah sneaking one extra detail: Brian is on every track in some way (vocally or instrumentally)

I'm a little skeptical that Carl isn't on those "doo-wah-dah" backing vocals on "Alone...", there's a voice in that stack that sounds exactly like that circa 1977/78 tipsy/drunk Carl voice (also heard on the lead on "Go and Get that Girl"). But I also know that those guys could tend to sound like each other in weird ways at various junctures, and I certainly can't claim to be super familiar with what Gary Puckett sounded like in 1977. .