When the first A Very Special Christmas CD came out in the late 80s I picked it up. I'm a sucker for those Christmas collections; I like a lot of different songs by a lot of different artists, as opposed to, say, Elvis Presley's Christmas Album, haha. Plus I am also a sucker for things done for charities, so the fact that all proceeds from the album went to The Special Olympics just mades it easier for me to buy it. This first one was a *huge* financial and artistic success (John Mellencamp, Whitney Houston, the Pointer Sisters, Bruce Springsteen....I mean, come ON!). So when I saw the second one, I bought it, too. By this time it was 1992 and I was in Japan, so I didn't know a lot of the acts on this one (Michael Bolton? Wilson Phillips? Vanessa Williams?) One group in particular I did not recognize at all: EXTREME. A little digging found that they were the group behind the big hit "More Than Words." So I did know of them after all. I just hadn't realized that they sang that song. Their song on A Very Special Christmas (2) was their own composition called "Christmas Time Again."
It's really what Christmas is (or should be) about, without getting overly sentimental. When their harmonies come in at the end singing "The First Noel," it sends a chill down my spine. I like a lot of Christmas music and hate a lot more, but this one is a keeper.
When I went investigating to try to find a copy of this to share here I realized that it seems to be an unknown gem. It isn't mentioned anywhere in the Extreme wikipedia article or in the producer/writer Nuno Bettencourt's article, either. It looks like it was only available on this one CD. So you have *probably* never heard it! Which is a shame. Give it a listen, please....and let me know what you think.
And maybe one day we CAN have "Christmas all the year."
With lyrics like that, it is not hard to understand why it was 'forgotten'.
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