"Okay, That Was Good - Now, Once More, Just a Bit More Obnoxiously"

So I just heard this record for the first time this week, and even though it's a Christmas song-poem, I didn't want to wait ten months to share it with you. It's our old friend Cathy Mills, occasional star of the Tin Pan Alley label, doing (what was apparently) her best to sound cutesy. Perhaps the results are exactly what the song-poet was looking for. I certainly hope so, but what I hear is an entire performing ensemble being as cloying and obnoxious as I would think was possible. It's certainly not impossible that this was on purpose - I've heard enough song-poems to know that sometimes the musicians had a bit of mean-spirited fun with the material.

Whatever its backstory, I find "Just Like" to be sort of wonderfully awful. See what you think.

Download: Cathy Mills - Just Like
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One listen to Cathy Mills' flip side, "Hey, Hey" makes clear that her real singing voice sounds nothing like the kiddie voice on "Just Like". Here we have a tribute to the various instruments that make up a combo who are playing a rockin' number. And all is fine with that - there's a trumpet, a sax, a mellow organ. Cool. But then, in a phrase I'm not sure has ever been uttered or written, outside of this song, "Don't forget the bass cello groan". Yep. That old groaning "bass cello".

(And yes, I understand that the writers were surely referring to a double bass, but still... "The bass cello groan"?)

Download: Cathy Mills - Hey, Hey
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