Attentive collectors of my recently remastered CDs, if there were any, would probably notice a conspicuous omission: my 1996 Christmas song, “Shut Up And Have A Merry Christmas.” It’s not on the remastered Sounds Like Music (the album that originally included it as a bonus track), nor on Leaving It Behind (which collected non-album tracks from that period).
Although I tend to regard the song as one of my lesser efforts, its disappearance from my catalog was not an attempt at revisionism. The fact is, I never considered “Shut Up” a proper part of Sounds Like Music, so it didn’t really belong on the remastered version. And while I considered including it on Leaving It Behind, I ultimately omitted it because, as a Christmas song, it seemed destined to be a “skip-over” track most of the time.
I decided instead that “Shut Up And Have A Merry Christmas” is best presented as a stand-alone entity: a single, if you will. In this modern age, that means making it available exclusively as a downloadable track, rather than putting it on any kind of CD.
I’m in the process of renovating my music site, which will include this and other tracks for download. But I thought I should go ahead and make this track available while the season is right. Here is “Shut Up And Have A Merry Christmas,” remixed and remastered in 2009.
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