This, the first Question Beggar Christmas song, "Anything for Christmas," found its way to singlehood as thanks to the Top Talent podcast I've been participating in since October of 2022. A promotional setup run out of the UK, the Top Talent "Family" (those of us who dropped a hundred quid/year for their services) join a Zoom call with other artists and have a multi-hour lovefest reviewing each others music videos. They tape it and distribute our segments on social media.

So, about a week ago, Sparky, who runs Top Talent asked if I would join their Christmas podcast, where I could promote a Christmas song or just tape a seasons greeting message for them. Then and there, thinks I, "I'll do a Christmas single and video!" And I told him so. "That's ok, even if you record a 1 minute of so merry Xmas message we can still feature you in the show, even 20-30 seconds wishing everyone the best for 2023..."

Refusing to take the hint, I barreled into production of an all-new song. It was a surprisingly emotional journey.

I had some Christmas lyrics in my tiny spiral notebook from a few months back that I thought might be suitable. Called, "Everything for Christmas," it was a story of how my best friend growing up got everything for Christmas because his Dad worked at Sears (true story), and then how my son got everything for Christmas because his Mom's parents made sure of it, though I was a hopeless provider, and then how I've learned to feel blessed at Christmas no matter how much I don't have.

That might have been a better song than this one, come to think on it. But this song was determined to be. As I plugged along writing the music—which started with lifting the melody line from "Hark the Herald Angels" as a riff—the "join the triumph of the skies" part—for "Everything for Christmas," I kept rearranging and rewriting and revising until eventually a very different song, "Anything for Christmas," split off and starting developing on its own. Many tears were shed by me along the way. Christmas is an emotional time that the child in me is still attached to and the adult in me is dismayed at.

Although I long ago stopped being an enemy of the season, my current celebrations of it have been seriously curtailed. I don't give or get presents. Some years I put up my tree, some I don't. I think I've quit putting lights on the house. But there are some Grinches out there who are pissed off at Christmas and it turns out I wrote "Anything for Christmas" on their behalf.

The song is addressed to anyone enlightened enough to show understanding to anyone not in the mood for the yuletide high tide. Don't get them gifts, give them love, which, "in sum" takes the form of forgiveness, maybe for something they've done or maybe just for ruining the holiday with their crankiness. "Anything for Christmas" has been shaved down, whittled away and refitted more than any song of mine in recent memory. Almost as if the song was insisting I cast it in the correct final form.

In another first, this is the first Question Beggar recording to be released with the new/old Eko 3-string bass hybrid. Anyone familiar with my vonHummer recordings (and videos) will recognize this orange, violin-shaped guitar that I outfitted with a bass string and 2 courses of guitar strings. Still the same old B-F#-B tuning, but the Eko has a mandolin-like lightness to it while the bass is very prominent. I stopped playing it for no good reason back in 2012 but I fell back in love with it and brought it back to life this year, having Snyder Guitars refurbish it and upgrade it to the same standards as my 3-string basses: 4 outputs with a piezo pickguard tapper.

I've played it a gig this year and several open mikes to scattered accolades and now the Eko takes its rightful place in the Question Beggar arsenal of sounds.

The song was produced in about 3 days, with one day rehearsing the arrangement, one day recording the instruments (all in one shot, no overdubs), and one day for the vocals, mixing and mastering. I say "mastering," which is unusual for me. I almost never master, but in looking at my ZOOM recorder, I finally got curious about the "Mastering" button which I've never used in the 16 years I've been using it. Turns out there are a number of different mastering algorithms I can apply when I do my final output. Today, I chose "Warmth". It sounded the best. Hope it still does.

One other notable oddity about this recording is the "Sisters/Brothers..." section, just before the last chorus. I was whizzing along recording the song as planned, when suddenly I started playing the wrong chords in a right way. I should have finished the chorus and then drove into repeating it again, but instead I added a couple of bars, then continued on to the coda and finished. Recognizing the fickle finger of Fate tapping me on the shoulder, I left it in and called the instrumentals "done."

This meant having to write some more lyrics and I decided on a kind of call and response of different social roles that could use love and, in sum: forgiveness. At the end I paid tribute to Queen's "Under Pressure" by adding "People in streets/ under pressure" to the list. I sung it like it was on their record, too, of which I consider to be a Christmas song, too, because it came out Christmas of 1981, and still takes me right back there every time I hear it.

I guess there's not many more pages I can write about a 3:40 single, so I close up and wish all a Merry Christmas, no matter the time of year you read this.

QB. December 10, 2022.